peered and winked and grinned from the big wrinkles above
the gaiters of Zouaves, from the red breeches of the gendarmes, the
knickerbockers of the cyclists, the white ducks of sergents de ville,
and the knees of the boulevardiers, bagged with sitting cross-legged at
the little tables. I could not escape these eyes;--how scornfully they
twinkled at me from the spurred and glittering officers' boots! How with
amaze from the American and English trousers, both turned up and creased
like folded paper, both with some dislike for each other but for all
other trousers more.

It was only at such times when the mortifications to appear so greatly
embarrassed became stronger than the embarrassment itself that I could
by will power force my head to a straight construction and look out
upon my spectators firmly. On the second day of my ordeal, so facing
the laughers, I found myself facing straight into the monocle of my
half-brother and ill-wisher, Prince Caravacioli.

At this, my agitation was sudden and very great, for there was no one
I wished to prevent perceiving my condition more than that old Antonio
Caravacioli! I had not known that he was in Paris, but I could have no
doubt it was himself: the monocle, the handsome nose, the toupee',
the yellow skin, the dyed-black moustache, the splendid height--it was
indeed Caravacioli! He was costumed for the automobile, and threw but
one glance at me as he crossed the pavement to his car, which was in
waiting. There was no change, not of the faintest, in that frosted
tragic mask of a countenance, and I was glad to think that he had not
recognized me.

And yet, how strange that I should care, since all his life he had
declined to recognize me as what I was! Ah, I should have been glad to
shout his age, his dyes, his artificialities, to all the crowd, so to
touch him where it would most pain him! For was he not the vainest man
in the whole world? How well I knew his vulnerable point: the monstrous
depth of his vanity in that pretense of youth which he preserved through
superhuman pains and a genius of a valet, most excellently! I had much
to pay Antonio for myself, more for my father, most for my mother.
This was why that last of all the world I would have wished that old
fortune-hunter to know how far I had been reduced!

Then I rejoiced about that change which my unreal baldness produced in
me, giving me a look of forty years instead of twenty-four, so that
my oldest friend must