In another he wrote:—­

“I seem to have lived years in the last five or six weeks, and to have grown suddenly old and cynical.  Some French writer (I think it is Alphonse Karr) says, ’Nothing in life is really great and good, except what is not true.  Man’s greatest treasures are his illusions.’  Alas! my illusions have been dropping from me in showers of late, like withered leaves in Autumn.  The tree will be bare as a gallows ere long, if these rough winds keep on blowing.  If only things would amuse me as of old!  If there was still excitement in play, and forgetfulness in wine, and novelty in travel!  But there is none—­and all things alike are ’flat, stale, and unprofitable,’ The truth is, Damon, I want but one thing—­and wanting that, lack all.”

Here is one more extract, and it shall be the last:—­

“You ask me how I pass my days—­in truth, wearily enough.  I rise with the dawn, but that is not very early in September; and I ride for a couple of hours before breakfast.  After breakfast I play billiards in some public room, consume endless pipes, read the papers, and so on.  Later in the day I scowl through a picture-gallery, or a string of studios; or take a pull up the river; or start off upon a long, solitary objectless walk through miles and miles of forest.  Then comes dinner—­the inevitable, insufferable, interminable German table-d’hote dinner—­and then there is the evening to be got through somehow!  Now and then I drop in at a theatre, but generally take refuge in some plebeian Lust Garten or Beer Hall, where amid clouds of tobacco-smoke, one may listen to the best part-singing and zitter-playing in Europe.  And so my days drag by—­who but myself knows how slowly?  Truly, Damon, there comes to every one of us, sooner or later, a time when we say of life as Christopher Sly said of the comedy—­’’Tis an excellent piece of work.  Would ‘twere done!’”

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE VICOMTE DE CAYLUS.

It was after receiving the last of these letters that I hazarded a third visit to Madame de Courcelles.  This time, I ventured to present myself at her door about midday, and was at once ushered upstairs into a drawing-room looking out on the Rue Castellane.

Seeing her open work-table, with the empty chair and footstool beside it, I thought at the first glance that I was alone in the room, when a muttered “Sacr-r-r-re!  Down, Bijou!” made me aware of a gentleman extended at full length upon a sofa near the fireplace, and of a vicious-looking Spitz crouched beneath it.

The gentleman lifted his head from the sofa-cusion; stared at me; bowed carelessly; got upon his feet; and seizing the poker, lunged savagely at the fire, as if he had a spite against it, and would have put it out, if he could.  This done, he yawned aloud, flung himself into the nearest easy-chair, and rang the bell.

“More coals, Henri,” he said, imperiously; “and—­stop! a bottle of Seltzer-water.”