rseback at the side of the carriage, his mount squeezed his leg so
hard against the wheel that he had to keep his room and be bandaged
for several days. But the finest spectacle was to see him in the
drawing-room, 'dancing,' as Danjou said, 'before the Ark.' He stretched
and bent his unwieldy person in all directions. He would challenge to
a philosophic duel the young critic, a confirmed pessimist of
three-and-twenty, and overwhelm him with his own imperturbable optimism.
Laniboire the philosopher had one particular reason for this good
opinion of the world; his wife had died of diphtheria caught from
nursing their children; both his children had died with their mother;
and each time that he repeated his dithyramb in praise of existence,
the philosopher concluded his statement with a sort of practical
demonstration, a bow to the Duchess, which seemed to say, 'How can a man
think ill of life in the presence of such beauty as yours?'

The young critic paid his court in a less conspicuous and sufficiently
cunning fashion. He was an immense admirer of the Prince d'Athis, and
being at the age when admiration shows itself by imitation, he no sooner
made his entry into society than he copied Sammy's attitudes, his walk,
even the carriage of his head, his bent back, and vague mysterious smile
of contemptuous reserve. Now he increased the resemblance by details
of dress, which he had observed and collected with the sharpness of a
child, from the way of pinning his tie just at the opening of the collar
to the fawn-coloured check of his English trousers. Unfortunately he had
too much hair and not a scrap of beard, so that his efforts were quite
thrown away, and revived no uncomfortable memories in the Duchess, who
was as indifferent to his English checks as she was to the languishing
glances of Bretigny _fils_, or the significant pressure of Bretigny
_pere_, as he gave her his arm to dinner. But all this helped to
surround her with that atmosphere of gallantry to which she had long
been accustomed by D'Athis, who played the humble servant to the
verge of servility, and to save her woman's pride from the conscious
humiliation of abandonment.

Amidst all these aspirants Danjou kept somewhat aloof, amusing the
Duchess with his green-room stories and making her laugh, a way of
self-recommendation in certain cases not unsuccessful. But the time came
when he thought matters sufficiently advanced: and one morning when she
was starting f