“You look sad ven you look at your friend,” remarked Schmucke, who had listened with great interest.  “Kann you pe chealous of him?”

“I am jealous for Fritz’s happiness,” said Wilhelm.  “Does that face look as if it belonged to a happy man?  I am afraid of Paris; I should like to see him do as I am doing.  The old tempter may awake again.  Of our two heads, his carries the less ballast.  His dress, and the opera-glass and the rest of it make me anxious.  He keeps looking at the lorettes in the house.  Oh! if you only knew how hard it is to marry Fritz.  He has a horror of ‘going a-courting,’ as you say; you would have to give him a drop into a family, just as in England they give a man a drop into the next world.”

During the uproar that usually marks the end of a first night, the flute delivered his invitation to the conductor.  Pons accepted gleefully; and, for the first time in three months, Schmucke saw a smile on his friend’s face.  They went back to the Rue de Normandie in perfect silence; that sudden flash of joy had thrown a light on the extent of the disease which was consuming Pons.  Oh, that a man so truly noble, so disinterested, so great in feeling, should have such a weakness! . . .  This was the thought that struck the stoic Schmucke dumb with amazement.  He grew woefully sad, for he began to see that there was no help for it; he must even renounce the pleasure of seeing “his goot Bons” opposite him at the dinner-table, for the sake of Pons’ welfare; and he did not know whether he could give him up; the mere thought of it drove him distracted.

Meantime, Pons’ proud silence and withdrawal to the Mons Aventinus of the Rue de Normandie had, as might be expected, impressed the Presidente, not that she troubled herself much about her parasite, now that she was freed from him.  She thought, with her charming daughter, that Cousin Pons had seen through her little “Lili’s” joke.  But it was otherwise with her husband the President.

Camusot de Marville, a short and stout man, grown solemn since his promotion at the Court, admired Cicero, preferred the Opera-Comique to the Italiens, compared the actors one with another, and followed the multitude step by step.  He used to recite all the articles in the Ministerialist journals, as if he were saying something original, and in giving his opinion at the Council Board he paraphrased the remarks of the previous speaker.  His leading characteristics were sufficiently well known; his position compelled him to take everything seriously; and he was particularly tenacious of family ties.

Like most men who are ruled by their wives, the President asserted his independence in trifles, in which his wife was very careful not to thwart him.  For a month he was satisfied with the Presidente’s commonplace explanations of Pons’ disappearance; but at last it struck him as singular that the old musician, a friend of forty years’ standing, should first make them so valuable a present as a fan