On a corner of the Boulevard St. Michel and a cross street there is a brasserie beloved of artists and art students, and slightly more popular with them than similar institutions of the same ilk in the Latin Quarter.  Here, one hazy October evening, nine months after Mr. Von Whele’s hurried departure from Paris, might have been found Jack Clare.  Tete-a-tete with him, across the little marble-topped table, was his friend Victor Nevill, whom he had known in earlier days in England, and whose acquaintance he had recently renewed in gay Paris.  Nevill was an Oxford graduate, and a wild and dissipated young man of Jack’s age; he was handsome and patrician-looking, a hail-fellow-well-met and a favorite with women, but a close observer of character would have proclaimed him to be selfish and heartless.  He had lately come into a large sum of money, and was spending it recklessly.

The long, low-ceilinged room was dim with tobacco smoke, noisy with ribald jests and laughter.  Here and there the waitresses, girls coquettishly dressed, tripped with bottles and syphons, foaming bocks, and glasses of brandy or liqueurs.  The customers of the brasserie were a mixed lot of women and men, the latter comprising’ numerous nationalities, and all drawn to Paris by the wiles of the Goddess of Art.  Topical songs of the day succeeded one another rapidly.  A group of long-haired, polyglot students hung around the piano, while others played on violins or guitars, which they had brought to contribute to the evening’s enjoyment.  At intervals, when there was a lull, the click of billiard balls came from an adjoining apartment.  Out on the boulevard, under the glaring lights, the tide of revelers and pleasure-seekers flowed unceasingly.

“I consider this a night wasted,” said Jack.  “I would rather have gone to the Casino, for a change.”

“It didn’t much matter where we went, as long as we spent our last evening together,” Victor Nevill replied.  “You know I leave for Rome to-morrow.  I fancy it will be a good move, for I have been going the pace too fast in Paris.”

“So have I,” said Jack, wearily.  “I’m not as lucky as you, with a pot of money to draw on.  I intend to turn over a new leaf, old chap, and you’ll find me reformed when you come back.  I’ve been a fool, Nevill.  When my mother died last February I came into 30,000 francs, and for the last five months I have been scattering my inheritance recklessly.  Very little of it is left now.”

“But you have been working?”

“Yes, in a sort of a way.  But you can imagine how it goes when a fellow turns night into day.”

“It’s time you pulled up,” said Nevill, “before you go stone broke.  You owe that much to your wife.”

He spoke with a slight sneer which escaped his companion.

“I like that,” Jack muttered bitterly.  “Diane has spent two francs to my one—­or helped me to spend them.”

“Such is the rosy path of marriage,” Nevill remarked lightly.