We stood still until the paroxysmal rending in my head ceased.  Then I sat on the grassy roadside trying to smile at the marquis, and shrugging an apology for my weakness.  The beauty of the arched trees disappeared, and when next I recognized the world we were moving slowly toward Paris in a heavy carriage, and I was smitten with the conviction that my friend had not eaten the dinner he ordered in the town of Versailles.

I felt ashamed of the weakness which came like an eclipse, and withdrew leaving me in my strength.  It ceased to visit me within that year, and has never troubled me at all in later days.  Yet, inconsistently, I look back as to the glamour of youth; and though it worked me hurt and shame, I half regret that it is gone.

The more I saw of the Marquis du Plessy the more my slow tenacious heart took hold on him.  We went about everywhere together.  I think it was his hope to wed me to his company and to Paris, and shove the Mittau venture into an indefinite future; yet he spared no pains in obtaining for me my passports to Courland.

At this time, with cautious, half reluctant hand, he raised the veil from a phase of life which astonished and revolted me.  I loved a woman.  The painted semblances of women who inhabited a world of sensation had no effect upon me.

“You are wonderfully fresh, Lazarre,” the marquis said.  “If you were not so big and male I would call you mademoiselle!  Did they never sin in the American backwoods?”

Then he took me in his arms like a mother, and kissed me, saying, “Dear son and sire, I am worse than your great-grandfather!”

Yet my zest for the gaiety of the old city grew as much as he desired.  The golden dome of the Invalides became my bubble of Paris, floating under a sunny sky.

Whenever I went to the hotel which De Chaumont had hired near the Tuileries, Madame de Ferrier received me kindly; having always with her Mademoiselle de Chaumont or Miss Chantry, so that we never had a word in private.  I thought she might have shown a little feeling in her rebuff, and pondered on her point of view regarding my secret rank.  De Chaumont, on the other hand, was beneath her in everything but wealth.  How might she regard stooping to him?

Miss Chantry was divided between enforced deference and a Saxon necessity to tell me I would not last.  I saw she considered me one of the upstarts of the Empire, singularly favored above her brother, but under my finery the same French savage she had known in America.

Eagle brought Paul to me, and he toddled across the floor, looked at me wisely, and then climbed my knee.

Doctor Chantry had been living in Paris a life above his dreams of luxury.  When occasionally I met my secretary he was about to drive out; or he was returning from De Chaumont’s hotel.  And there I caught my poor master reciting poems to Annabel, who laughed and yawned, and made faces behind her fan.  I am afraid he drew on the marquis’ oldest wines, finding indulgence in the house; and he sent extravagant bills to me for gloves and lawn cravats.  It was fortunate that De Chaumont took him during my absence.  He moved his belongings with positive rapture.  The marquis and I both thought it prudent not to publish my journey.