The Paris taximeters are good, and our progress was rapid.  We passed through the crowded streets, where the women spread themselves out like beautiful butterflies, where the electric lights were deadened by the brilliance of the moon, where men, bent double over the handles of their bicycles, shot hither and thither with great paper lanterns alight in front of them.  We passed into the quieter streets, though even here the wayfarers whom we met were obviously bent on pleasure, up the hill, till at last we pulled up at one of the best-known restaurants in the locality.  Here Louis was welcomed as a prince.  The manager, with many exclamations and gesticulations, shook hands with him like a long-lost brother.  The maitres d’hotel all came crowding up for a word of greeting.  A table in the best part of the room, which was marked reserve, was immediately made ready.  Champagne, already in its pail of ice, was by our side almost before we had taken our places.

I had been here a few nights before, alone, and had found the place uninspiring enough.  To-night, except that Louis told me the names of many of the people, and that the supper was the best meal which I had eaten in Paris, I was very little more amused.  The nigger, the Spanish dancing-girl with her rolling eyes, the English music-hall singer with her unmistakable Lancashire accent, went through the same performance.  The gowns of the women were wonderful,—­more wonderful still their hats, their gold purses, the costly trifles which they carried.  A woman by our side sat looking into a tiny pocket-mirror of gold studded with emeralds, powdering her face the while with a powder-puff to match, in the centre of which were more emeralds, large and beautifully cut.  Louis noticed my scrutiny.

“The wealth of France,” he whispered in my ear, “is spent upon its women.  What the Englishman spends at his club or on his sports the Frenchman spends upon his womankind.  Even the bourgeoisie, who hold their money with clenched fists like that,” he gesticulated, striking the table, “for their women they spend, spend freely.  They do all this, and the great thing which they ask in return is that they are amused.  After all, monsieur,” he continued, “they are logical.  What a man wants most in life, in the intervals between his work, is amusement.  It is amusement that keeps him young, keeps him in health.  It is his womankind who provide that amusement.”

“And if one does not happen to be married to a Frenchwoman?”

Louis nodded sympathetically.

“Monsieur is feeling like that,” he said, as he sipped his wine thoughtfully.  “Yes, it is very plain!  Yet monsieur is not always sad.  I have seen him often at my restaurant, the guest or the host of many pleasant parties.  There is a change since those days, a change indeed.  I noticed it when I ventured to address monsieur on the steps of the Opera House.”

I remained gloomily silent.  It was one thing to avail myself of the society of a very popular little maitre d’hotel, holiday making in his own capital, and quite another to take him even a few steps into my confidence.  So I said nothing, but my eyes, which travelled around the room, were weary.