ter of an
hour behind time. Are you not ready?"

"Yes, certainly."

"Let us start at once, then; my brougham is outside."

The drive was a silent one. M. Ferdinand de Coralth, whose smooth white
skin would ordinarily have excited the envy of a young girl, did not
look like himself. His face was swollen and covered with blotches, and
there were dark blue circles round his eyes. He seemed, moreover, to be
in a most savage humor. "He hasn't had sleep enough," thought M. Wilkie,
with his usual discernment; "he hasn't a bronze constitution like
myself."

M. Wilkie himself was insensible to fatigue, and although he had
not closed his eyes the previous night, he only felt that nervous
trepidation which invariably attacks debutants, and makes the throat so
marvellously dry. For the first, and probably the last time in his life,
M. Wilkie distrusted his own powers, and feared that he was not "quite
up to the mark," as he elegantly expressed it.

The sight of the Marquis de Valorsay's handsome mansion was not likely
to restore his assurance. When he entered the courtyard, where the
master's mail-phaeton stood in waiting; when through the open doors
of the handsome stables he espied the many valuable horses neighing in
their stalls, and the numerous carriages shrouded in linen covers; when
he counted the valets on duty in the vestibule, and when he ascended the
staircase behind a lackey attired in a black dress-coat, and as serious
in mien as a notary; when he passed through the handsome drawing-rooms,
filled to overflowing with pictures, armor, statuary, and all the
trophies gained by the marquis's horses upon the turf, M. Wilkie
mentally acknowledged that he knew nothing of high life, and that what
he had considered luxury was scarcely the shadow of the reality. He
felt actually ashamed of his own ignorance. This feeling of inferiority
became so powerful that he was almost tempted to turn and fly, when the
man clothed in black opened the door and announced, in a clear voice:
"M. le Vicomte de Coralth!--M. Wilkie."

With a most gracious and dignified air--the air of a true GRAND
seigneur--the only portion of his inheritance which he had preserved
intact, the marquis rose to his feet, and, offering his hand to M. de
Coralth, exclaimed: "You are most welcome, viscount. This gentleman is
undoubtedly the young friend you spoke of in the note I received from
you this morning?"

"The same; and really he stands greatly in need