This bachelor’s suite lacked, however, something personal, something living, some cherished object, the mark of some particular taste, some passion for a period, for a thing, or pictures or books.  In this jumble of ill-matched curiosities, where ivory netzkes on tables surrounded Barye bronzes and Dresden figures, there lacked some evidence of an individual character that would give a dominant tone, an original key, to the collection.  This worldly dwelling, with its white lacquered bed and Louis XV. canopy and its heads of birds carved in wood like the queen’s bed at Trianon, vaguely resembled the apartments of a fashionable woman.

But Guy had hung around here and there a Samourai sabre, Malay krises, Oriental daggers in purple velvet sheaths, and upon the green tapestry background of the antechamber a panoply on which keen-bladed swords with steel guards were mingled with Scotch claymores with silver hilts, thus giving a masculine character to this hotel of a fashionable lounger, steeped with the odor of ylang-ylang like the little house of a pretty courtesan.

This Guy enjoyed in Paris a free and easy life, leaving to Vaudrey, his old college-comrade at Grenoble, the pursuit of the pleasures of political life, and, as Lissac said in that bantering tone which is peculiar to Parisian gossip, the relish of the “sweets of power”; for himself, what kept him in Paris was Paris itself, just that and nothing more:—­its pleasures, its first nights, its surprises, its women, that flavor of scandal and perfume of refined immorality that seemed peculiar to his time and surroundings.

He had squandered two fortunes, one after the other, without feeling any regret; he had made a brush at journalism, tried finance, won at the Bourse, lost at the clubs, knew everybody and was known by all, had a smiling lip, was sound of tooth, loved the girls, was dreaded by the men, was of fine appearance, and was unquestionably noble, which permitted him to enjoy all the frolics of Bohemian life without sullying himself, having always discovered a forgotten uncle or met some considerate friend to pay his gambling debts and adjust his differences on the Bourse speculations at the very nick of time; just now he was well in the saddle and decidedly attractive, with a sound heart and a well-lined pocket, enjoying, not disliking life, which seemed to him a term of imprisonment to be passed merrily—­a Parisian to the finger-tips and to the bottom of his soul, worse than a Parisian in fact, a Parisianized provincial inoculated with Parisine, just as certain sick persons are with morphine, judging men by their wit, actions by their results, women by the size of their gloves; as sceptical as the devil, wicked in speech and considerate in thought, still agile at forty, claiming even that this is man’s best time—­the period of fortune and gallantry—­sliding along in life and taking things as he found them, wisely considering that a day’s snow or rain lasts no longer than a day’s sunshine, and that, after all, a wretched night is soon over.