ed in seeing her darling in this state, and
blushed at the vulgarity of his manners or his awkwardness at the table,
she was still more mortified at the tone of contempt with which her
husband's friends spoke of her son.

Jack saw little difference in the habitues of the house, save that they
were older, had less hair and fewer teeth; in every other respect they
were the same. They had attained no higher social position, and were
still without visible means of support.

They met every day to discuss the prospects of the Review, and twice
each week they all dined at D'Argenton's table. Moronval generally
brought with him his two last pupils. One was a young Japanese prince
of an indefinite age, and who, robbed of his floating robes, seemed very
small and slender. With his little cane and hat, he looked like a figure
of yellow clay fallen from an etagere upon the Parisian sidewalk. The
other, with narrow slits of eyes and a black beard, recalled certain
vague remembrances to Jack, who at last recognized his old friend Said
who had offered him cigar ends on their first interview.

The education of this unfortunate youth had been long since finished,
but his parents had left him with Moronval to be initiated into the
manners and customs of fashionable society. All these persons treated
Jack with a certain air of condescension. He remained Master Jack to but
one person--that was that most amiable of women, Madame Moronval, who
wore the same silk dress that he had seen her in years before. He cared
little whether he was called "Master Jack," or "My boy,"--his two months
in the hospital, his three years of alcoholic indulgence, the atmosphere
of the engine-room, and the final tempestuous conclusion, had caused him
such profound exhaustion, such a desire for quiet, that he sat with his
pipe between his teeth, silent and half asleep.

"He is intoxicated," said D'Argent on sometimes.

This was not the case; but the young man found his only pleasure in the
society of his mother on the rare occasions when the poet was absent.
Then he drew his chair close to hers, and listened to her rather than
talk himself. Her voice made a delicious murmur in his ears like that of
the first bees on a warm spring day.

Once, when they were alone, he said to Charlotte, very slowly, "When I
was a child I went on a long voyage--did I not?"

She looked at him a little troubled. It was the first time in his life
that he had asked a question in r