I know
what it is. I've gone through it myself. I kept for six months an absurd
ribbon of that infernal little flirt Fanny Freeman. Don't you remember
how angry I was when you abused her?

"'Your father and I knew each other when we were children, my friend,'
the Countess said to me (in the sweetest French accent). He was
looking into the garden of the house where they live, in the Rue Saint
Dominique. 'You must come and see me often, always. You remind me of
him,' and she added, with a very sweet kind smile, 'Do you like best
to think that he was better-looking than you, or that you excel him?'
I said I should like to be like him. But who is? There are cleverer
fellows, I dare say; but where is there such a good one? I wonder
whether he was very fond of Madame de Florac? The old Count does not
show. He is quite old, and wears a pigtail. We saw it bobbing over his
garden chair. He lets the upper part of his house; Major-General the
Honourable Zeno F. Pokey, of Cincinnati, U.S., lives in it. We saw Mrs.
Pokey's carriage in the court, and her footmen smoking cigars there;
a tottering old man with feeble legs, as old as old Count de Florac,
seemed to be the only domestic who waited on the family below.

"Madame de Florac and my father talked about my profession. The Countess
said it was a belle carriere. The Colonel said it was better than the
army. 'Ah oui, monsieur,' says she very sadly. And then he said, 'that
presently I should very likely come to study at Paris, when he knew
there would be a kind friend to watch over son garcon.'

"'But you will be here to watch over him yourself, mon ami?' says the
French lady.

"Father shook his head. 'I shall very probably have to go back to
India,' he said. 'My furlough is expired. I am now taking my extra
leave. If I can get my promotion, I need not return. Without that I
cannot afford to live in Europe. But my absence in all probability
will be but very short,' he said. 'And Clive is old enough now to go on
without me.'

"Is this the reason why father has been so gloomy for some months
past? I thought it might have been some of my follies which made him
uncomfortable; and you know I have been trying my best to amend--I
have not half such a tailor's bill this year as last. I owe scarcely
anything. I have paid off Moss every halfpenny for his confounded rings
and gimcracks. I asked father about this melancholy news as we walked
away from Madame de Florac.

"He is not near