roses and geraniums in the music-room of Mademoiselle Milan,
and the lady was seated near him, trifling with the keys of her piano.

"I gaze on beauty, mademoiselle, to accustom my eyes to divinity."

"Really! Were it not for his gigantic proportions, one would suppose man
was reared in an atmosphere of compliment."

"You mistake us. Though not a favorite diet, in Pekin we devour rice
with the gusto of the most polished Celestial."

"I bow to your sincerity. Women, then, are to be talked to of birds, and
flowers, and stars, and fed on water-cresses?"

"Women, mademoiselle, make men apt scholars in the art of pleasing. I
have studied much."

"How singular!" rejoined the lady. "I should never have detected it."

"True art, mademoiselle, lies in its concealment. My life has been one
of concealment."

"Now you pique my curiosity," she replied. "Do let me learn the
'veritable historie.'"

The smile on Mademoiselle Milan's face showed that the interest was
feigned, but the grim look about Dupleisis' mouth proved him conscious
of it. A man without an object would have changed the subject at once;
but Dupleisis _had_ an object, and did not.

"I was ushered into this land of hope and sunny smiles with scarcely any
other patrimony than a name."

"What limited resources!" ejaculated the lady, with a slight sneer.

"While blushing with the consciousness of my virgin cravat, I went to
Paris, that sacred ark, which saves from shipwreck all the wretched of
the provinces if but crowned with a ray of intellect."

"And which saved you, of course," continued the lady.

"Through the influence of my friends, I entered the _Ecole
Polytechnique_, and, after graduating, cut the army, and cast my fate,
for better or for worse, in the flowery paths of literature."

"Now, do not say it proved for worse."

"It was for worse," said Dupleisis. "My family were treated shabbily;
'the muse is a maiden of good memory,' but a _cocote_; my satiric
efforts were rewarded by a _lettre de cachet_."

"What a loss to France!"

"At the accession of the Emperor, I returned, a prodigal son of Mars,
and now manage to sustain myself by----"

"By writing sonnets to Brazilian hospitality," interrupted mademoiselle.

Dupleisis bowed gravely. "Anxious to do so, mademoiselle, but I have
not, as yet, collected sufficient material."

The retort crimsoned the lady's face, and Dupleisis adroitly covered her
confusion by asking her to sing.

"What