“Oh, yes,” he explained, once more exhibiting himself in the capacity of the man who knows, “Radet gives it to them.  Rather a lark, I call it, though you mustn’t let old de Mersch know you read him.  Radet got sick of Cochin, and tried Greenland.  He’s getting touched by the Whites you know.  They say that the priests don’t like the way the Systeme’s playing into the hands of the Protestants and the English Government.  So they set Radet on to write it down.  He’s going in for mysticism and all that sort of thing—­just like all these French jokers are doing.  Got deuced thick with that lot in the F. St. Germain—­some relation of yours, ain’t they?  Rather a lark that lot, quite the thing just now, everyone goes there; old de Mersch too.  Have frightful rows sometimes, such a mixed lot, you see.”  The good little man rattled amiably along beside me.

“Seems quite funny to be buying books,” he said.  “I haven’t read a thing I’ve bought, not for years.”

We reached the Opera in time for the end of the first act—­it was Aida, I think.  My little friend had a free pass all over the house.  I had not been in it for years.  In the old days I had always seen the stage from a great height, craning over people’s heads in a sultry twilight; now I saw it on a level, seated at my ease.  I had only the power of the Press to thank for the change.

“Come here as often as I can,” my companion said; “can’t do without music when it’s to be had.”  Indeed he had the love of his race for it.  It seemed to soften him, to change his nature, as he sat silent by my side.

But the closing notes of each scene found him out in the cool of the corridors, talking, and being talked to by anyone that would vouchsafe him a word.

“Pick up a lot here,” he explained.

After the finale we leaned over one of the side balconies to watch the crowd streaming down the marble staircases.  It is a scene that I never tire of.  There is something so fantastically tawdry in the coloured marble of the architecture.  It is for all the world like a triumph of ornamental soap work; one expects to smell the odours.  And the torrent of humanity pouring liquidly aslant through the mirror-like light, and the spaciousness....  Yes, it is fantastic, somehow; ironical, too.

I was watching the devious passage of a rather drunken, gigantic, florid Englishman, wondering, I think, how he would reach his bed.

“That must be a relation of yours,” the correspondent said, pointing.  My glance followed the line indicated by his pale finger.  I made out the glorious beard of the Duc de Mersch, on his arm was an old lady to whom he seemed to pay deferential attention.  His head was bent on one side; he was smiling frankly.  A little behind them, on the stairway, there was a space.  Perhaps I was mistaken; perhaps there was no space—­I don’t know.  I was only conscious of a figure, an indescribably clear-cut woman’s figure, gliding down the way.