I am in Paris, and
seated at one of the little marble tables of the Cafe de la Paix,
dreamily watching the glittering tide of gay folk passing by,--

"All happy people on their way
To make a golden end of day."

Meditatively I smoke a cigarette and sip a pale greenish liquor
smelling strongly of aniseed, which isn't half so interesting as a
commonplace whiskey and soda, but which, I am told, has the
recommendation of being ten times as wicked. I sip it with a delicious
thrill of degeneration, as though I were Eve tasting the apple for the
first time,--for "such a power hath white simplicity." Sin is for the
innocent,--a truth which sinners will be the first to regret. It was
so, I said to myself, Alfred de Musset used to sit and sip his absinthe
before a fascinated world. It is a privilege for the world to look on
greatness at any moment, even when it is drinking. So I sat, and
privileged the world.

It will readily be surmised from this exordium that--incredible as it
may seem in a man of thirty--this was my first visit to Paris. You may
remember that I had bought Orlando's tickets, and it had occurred to
Sylvia and me to use them. Sylvia was due in London to fulfil a
dancing engagement within a fortnight after our arrival; so after a
tender good-bye, which there was no earthly necessity to make final, I
had remained behind for the purposes of study. Though, logically, my
pilgrimage had ended with the unexpected discovery of Sylvia Joy, yet
there were two famous feminine types of which, seeing that I was in
Paris, I thought I might as well make brief studies, before I returned
to London and finally resumed the bachelorhood from which I had
started. These were the grisette of fiction and the American girl of
fact. Pending these investigations, I meditated on the great city in
the midst of which I sat.

A city! How much more it was than that! Was it not the most portentous
symbol of modern history? Think what the word "Paris" means to the
emancipated intellect, to the political government, to the humanised
morals, of the world; not to speak of the romance of its literature,
the tradition of its manners, and the immortal fame of its women.
France is the brain of the world, as England is its heart, and Russia
its fist. Strange is the power, strange are the freaks and revenges,
of association, particularly perhaps of literary association. Here
pompous official representatives may demur; but who can d