d the stage with actors and actresses, in their
proper parts.

He called upon the bronze statue of Stanislas to come down from its high
pedestal, and appear before us in flesh, happy to be Duke of Lorraine,
after all the dethronings and abdications in Poland; a most
respectable-looking monarch despite his adventures and disguises of the
past. We saw him in a powdered perruque, on his way to the ducal palace,
after some religious ceremony that had attracted crowds of loyal
Catholic Lorrainers: beside him, his good wife of bourgeoise soul but
romantic name, Catherine Opalinska, a comfortable woman, too large for
the fashionable _robe a paniers_; with the pair, their daughter Marie,
proud of the fate foretold by a fortune-teller, that she should be queen
of France; the Royal family, and the aristocrats of their northern
court; the smart Polish officers in uniform; the pretty, coquettish
women, and dark-faced musicians of Hungary; the Swedish philosophers,
the long-haired Italian artists; and above all, the beautiful Marquise
de Boufflers--rival of the Queen--with her little dogs and black pages;
all these "belonged" to the sunlit picture, where our modern figures
seemed out of place and time. The noble square, with its vast stretch of
gray stone pavement--worn satin-smooth--its carved gray facades of
palaces, picked out with gold, and its vista of copper beeches rose-red
against a sky of pearl, had been designed as a sober background for the
colour and fantastic fashion of the eighteenth century, whereas we and
others like us but added an extra sober note.

I noticed, as Brian sketched us his little picture of the past, that
Dierdre O'Farrell gazed at him, as if at some legendary knight in whose
reality she did not believe. It was the first time I had seen any change
in the sullen face, but it was a change to interest rather than
sympathy. She had the air of saying in her mind: "You look more like a
St. George, stepped down from a stained-glass window, than an ordinary
man of to-day. You seem to think about everyone else before yourself,
and to see a lot more with your blind eyes than we see. You pretend to
be happy, too, as if you wanted to set everybody a good example. But
it's all a pose--a pose! I shall study you till I find you out, a
trickster like the rest of us."

I felt a sudden stab of dislike for the girl, for daring to put Brian on
a level with herself--and me. I wanted to punish her somehow, wanted to
make