“But you are a Frenchman yourself, Louis,” I remarked.

“But, monsieur,” he answered, “I live in London. Voila tout. One cannot write menus there for long, and succeed.  One needs inspiration.”

“And you find it here?” I asked.

Louis shrugged his shoulders.

“Paris, monsieur,” he answered, “is my home.  It is always a pleasure to me to see smiling faces, to see men and women who walk as though every footstep were taking them nearer to happiness.  Have you never noticed, monsieur,” he continued, “the difference?  They do not plod here as do your English people.  There is a buoyancy in their footsteps, a mirth in their laughter, an expectancy in the way they look around, as though adventures were everywhere.  I cannot understand it, but one feels it directly one sets foot in Paris.”

I nodded—­a little bitterly, perhaps.

“It is temperament,” I answered.  “We may envy, but we cannot acquire it.”

“It seems strange to see monsieur alone here,” Louis remarked.  “In London, it is always so different.  Monsieur has so many acquaintances.”

I was silent for a moment.

“I am here in search of some one,” I told Louis.  “It isn’t a very pleasant mission, and the memory of it is always with me.”

“A search!” Louis repeated thoughtfully.  “Paris is a large place, monsieur.”

“On the contrary,” I answered, “it is small enough if a man will but play the game.  A man, who knows his Paris, must be in one of half-a-dozen places some time during the day.”

“It is true,” Louis admitted.  “Yet monsieur has not been successful.”

“It has been because some one has warned the man of whom I am in search!” I declared.

“There are worse places,” he remarked, “in which one might be forced to spend one’s time.”

“In theory, excellent, Louis,” I said.  “In practice, I am afraid I cannot agree with you.  So far,” I declared, gloomily, “my pilgrimage has been an utter failure.  I cannot meet, I cannot hear of, the man who I know was flaunting it before the world three weeks ago.”

Louis shrugged his shoulders.

“Monsieur can do no more than seek,” he remarked.  “For the rest, one may leave many burdens behind in the train at the Gare du Nord.”

I shook my head.

“One cannot acquire gayety by only watching other people who are gay,” I declared.  “Paris is not for those who have anxieties, Louis.  If ever I were suffering from melancholia, for instance, I should choose some other place for a visit.”

Louis laughed softly.

“Ah!  Monsieur,” he answered, “you could not choose better.  There is no place so gay as this, no place so full of distractions.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“It is your native city,” I reminded him.