"You must come, my dear fellow. You know, when I promise you a pleasant evening I don't disappoint you. You'll meet everybody. You dine with me. Sole Joinville, at Philippe's—best to be had, I think—and a bird. In the cool, the Madrid for our coffee, and so gently back. I'll drop you at your door—leave you for an hour to paint the lily, and then fetch and take you. You shall not say me nay."

I protested a little, but I was won. I had a couple of days to spend in Paris, and, like a man on the wing, had no particular engagements.

We met, my host and I, at the Napolitain. He knew everybody, and was everybody's favourite. Cosmo Bertram, once guardsman, then fashionable saunterer wherever society was gayest, quietly extravagant and sentimentally dissipated, had, after much flitting about the sunny centres of the Continent, settled down to Paris and a happy place in the English society that has agglomerated in the west of Napoleon's capital. Fortunately for his "little peace of mind"—as he described a shrewd, worldly head—he was put down by the dowagers, after some sharp discussions of his antecedents, as "no match." There was the orphan daughter of a Baronet who had some hundred and twenty a year, and tastes which she hoped one day to satisfy by annexing a creature wearing a hat, and a pocket with ten times that sum. She had thought for a moment of Cosmo Bertram when she had enjoyed her first half-hour of his amusing rattle; but she had been quickly undeceived—Bertram could not have added a chicken to her broth, a pair of gloves to her toilette; so she shut up the thing she called a heart, for lack of some fitter name, and cruised again through the ominous gold rings of her glasses round the salons, and hoped the growing taste for travel might send her some one for annexation at last.

"We're jigging on pretty much as usual," Bertram said at Philippe's. "Plenty of scandal and plenty of reason for it. The demand creates the supply—is that sound political economy?"

"I am surprised that political economy, together with an intimate acquaintance with hydrostatics, are not exacted in these mad examination days from a queen's messenger; but I am not bound not to be a fool in political economy, so I elect to be one."

"Chablis?"

"Ay; and about ice?"

"My dear Q. M., when you have had a headache, has it ever fallen to your lot to be in the company of a pretty woman?"

"Else had I been one of the most neglected of men."

"Well, she has fetched the Eau-de-Cologne, bathed your manly brow, and then blown her balmy breath over your temples. That sweet coolness, my dear fellow, is my idea of the proper temperature for Chablis."

"It's a great bit of luck to pounce upon you, Bertram, when a man has only a few hours to spend in Paris, after a year or two's absence. Nearly upon two years have passed since I was here. Yes, November, '62—now August, '64."

"In that time, my dear Q. M., reputations have been made and lost by the hundred. I have had a score of eternal friendships. You can run through the matrimonial gauntlet, from courtship to the Divorce Court, in that time. We used to grieve for years: now we weep as we travel; shed tears, as we cast grain, by machinery. Two years! Why, I have passed through half-a-dozen worlds. My bosom friend of '62 wouldn't remember me if I met him to-morrow. I met old Baron Desordres, who has made such a brilliant fiasco for everybody except himself, yesterday; I knew him in '62 with poor little Bartle, who lent him a couple of thousands. Bartle died last month. In '62 Desordres and Bartle were inseparable. I said to the Baron yesterday, 'You know poor little Bartle is dead.' The Baron, picking his teeth, murmured, turning over the leaves of his memory, 'Bartel! Bartel! I remember—un petit gros, vrai?' and the leaves of the Baron's memory were turned back, and Bartle was as much forgotten in five minutes as the burnt end of a cigarette. I daresay his sisters are gone as governesses for want of the thousands the Baron ate. Two years! Two epochs!"

"I suppose so. While the light burns, and the summer is on, the moths come out. Tragedy, comedy, and farce elbow each other through the rooms. I have seen very much myself, for bird of passage. I took part in a strange incident when I passed through last time."

"Tell your story, and drink your Roederer, my dear Q. M."

"Story! I want to get at the story. I travelled with a man and his wife from Folkestone to Paris. On the boat he was the most attentive of husbands; at the terminus he had disappeared. Poor woman in tears; fell into my arms, sir, by Jove!"

"No story!" cried Bertram, winking at the floating air-beads in his glass. "No story! my good, simple Q.M. Egad! what would you have? Pray go on."

"Go on! I've finished. I was off in the afternoon by the Marseilles mail. Of course, I did my utmost to find the husband. She went to the Windsor; I thought it would be quiet for her. I went to the police, paid to have inquiries kept up in all the hotels; and lastly, put her in communication with a good business man—Moffum, you know; and left her, a wreck of one of the prettiest creatures I have ever seen."

"What kind of fellow was the husband? You got his name, of course?"

"Daker—Herbert Daker. Man of good family. A most agreeable, taking, travelled companion; light and bright as——"

"The light-hearted Janus of Lamb," Bertram interrupted, his words dancing lightly as the beads in his glass.

The association of Daker with Wainwright struck me sharply. For how genial and accomplished a man was the criminal! a stranger conglomeration of graces and sins never dwelt within one human breast. I was started on wild speculations.

"I've set you dreaming. You found no clue to a history?"

"None. She had been married three months to Daker. She was a poor girl left alone, with a few hundreds, I apprehend. She would not say much. A runaway match, I concluded. Not a word about her family. When I left Paris, after dinner, he had made no sign. She promised to write to me to Constantinople. I gave her my address in town. I told her Arthur's here would reach me. But not a word, my dear boy. That woman had the soul of truth in voice and look, or I never read Eve's face yet."

"Ha! ha!" Bertram laughed. "I wish I had not got beyond the risk of being snared by the un-gloving of a hand. You only pass through, I live in Paris."

"Paris or London, a heart may be read, if you will only take the trouble. I shall never hear, in all human probability, what has become of Mrs. Daker, or her husband; she may be an intrigante, and he a card-sharper now; all I know, and will swear, is that she loved that man to distraction then, and it was a girl in love."

"And he?"

Bertram's suspicions seemed to be fixed on Daker, whom he had never seen; although I had described his eminently prepossessing qualities.

"I can't understand why you should suspect Daker of villany, as I see you do, Bertram."

"I tell you he was a most accomplished, prepossessing villain, my dear Q.M. Your upper class villains are always prepossessing. Manners are as necessary to them as a small hand to a pickpocket."

"Sharp, but unfair—only partly true, like all sweeping generalizations. I think, as I hope, that the wife found the husband, and that they are nestling in some Italian retreat."

"And never had the grace to write you a word! No, no, you say they had manners. That, at any rate, then, is not the solution of the mystery."

Bertram was right here. Then what had become of Mrs. Daker? Daker, if alive, was a scoundrel, and one who had contrived to take care of himself. But that sweet country face! Here was a heart that might break, but would never harden.

"Mystery it must and will remain, I suppose."

"One of many," was Bertram's gay reply. "How they overload these matches with sulphur!"

He was lighting his cigar. His phaeton was at the door. A globule of Chartreuse; a compliment for the chef, a bow to the dame de comptoir, and we were on our way to the Bois, at a brisk trot, for the great world had cleared off to act tragedy and comedy by the ocean shore, or the invalid's well, or the gambler's green baize.

Bertram—one of that great and flourishing class of whom Scandal says "she doesn't know how they do it, or who pays for it"—albeit a bad match, even for Miss Tayleure, was, as I have said, in good English and French society, and drove his phaeton. He was saluted on his way along the Champs ElysÉes and by the lake, by many, and by some ladies who were still unaccountably lingering in Paris. A superb little Victoria passed. Bertram raised his hat.

"An Irish girl," he said, "of superb beauty."

At the Madrid we met a few people we knew; and, driving home, Bertram saluted Miss Tayleure, who was crawling round the lake with her twin sister, and was provoked to be recognised by a man of fashion in a hack vehicle in the month of August.

"Charming evening they're having," said Bertram: "taking out their watches every two minutes to be quite sure they shall get back within the hour and a half which they have made up their minds to afford. Beastly position!"

"What! living for appearances?"

"Just so; with women especially. Their dodges are extraordinary. Tayleure would cheapen a penny loaf, and run down the price of a box of lucifer matches. There's a chance for you! She would be an economical wife; but then, my dear fellow, she would spend all the savings on herself. Her virtue is like Gibraltar!"

"And would be safe as unintrenched tableland, I should think."

"Hang it!" Bertram handsomely interposed, "let us drop poor Tayleure. She believes that her hour of happiness has to be rung in yet; and she is always craning out of the window to catch the first silver echoes of the bells. The old gentlewoman is happy."

"Suppose you tell me something about your Irish beauty," I suggested.

"Quite a different story, my good Q.M. Wait till I get clear of this clumsy fellow ahead. So, so, gently. Now, Miss Trefoil; the Trefoil is a girl whose success I can understand perfectly. To begin with—the girl is educated. In the second place, she is, beyond all dispute, a beautiful woman. There is not another pair of violet eyes in all Paris—I mean in the season—to be matched with hers. Milk and roses—nothing more—for complexion: and no paint; which makes her light sisters—accomplished professors of the art of maquillage—hate her. A foot!" Bertram kissed the tip of his glove, by way of description. "A voice that seems to make the air rich about her."

"Gently, Bertram. We must be careful how we approach your queen, I see."

"Not a bit of it. I am telling you just what you would hear in any of the clubs. She has a liberal nature, my boy, and loves nobody, that I can find, in particular. What bewitches me in talking to her is a sort of serious background. I hate a woman all surface as I hate a flat house. The Trefoil—queer name, isn't it?—can put a tremor in her voice suddenly. The Trefoil has memories—a fact: something which she doesn't give to the world, generous as she is. It is the shade to her abounding and sparkling passages of light. Only her deep art, I dare say; but devilish pleasant and refreshing when you get tired of laughing—gives a little repose to facial muscles. The Trefoil has decidedly made a sensation. At the races she was as popular as the winner. She must have got home with a chariot full of money. Of course, when she bet, she won—or she didn't pay. A pot of money is to be made on that system: and the women, bless 'em, how kindly they've taken to it!"

This kind of improving discourse employed us to my gate. Bertram dropped me to return for "the painted lily" in an hour.

I am no squeamish man, or I should have passed a wretched life. The man who is perpetually travelling must bear with him a pliant nature that will adapt itself to any society, to various codes of morals, habits of thought, rules of conduct, and varieties of temperament. I can make myself at home in most places, but least in those regions which the progress of civilization, or the progress of something, has established in every capital of Europe, and to the description of which the younger Dumas has devoted his genius. The atmosphere of the demi-monde never delighted me. I see why it charms; I guess why it has become the potent rival of good society; the reason why men of genius, scholars, statesmen, princes, and all the great of the earth take pleasure in it, is not far to seek; silly women at home are to blame in great part. This new state of the body social is very much to be regretted; but I am not yet of those who think that good, decent society—the converse of honourable men with honourable women—is come or coming to an end. I am of the old-fashioned, who have always been better pleased and more diverted with the society of ladies than with that of the free graces who allow smoke and indulge in it, and who have wit but lack wisdom. I was not in high glee at the prospect of accompanying Cosmo Bertram to his free dancing party.

They are all very much alike. The fifteen sous basket, to use Dumas' fine illustration, in Paris, is very like the Vienna, the Berlin, or the London basket. The ladies are beautiful, exquisitely dressed, vivacious, and, early in the evening, well-mannered. At the outset you might think yourself at your embassy; at the close you catch yourself hoping you will get away safely. Shrill voices pipe in corners of the room. "On sautera!" People are jumping with a vengeance. The paint is disturbed upon your partner's face. Pretty lips speak ugly words. Honi soit qui mal y pense; but then the gentleman is between two and three wines, and the lady is rallying him because he has sense enough left to he a little modest. A couple sprawl in a waltz. A gentleman roars a toast. The hostess prays for less noise. An altercation breaks out in the antechamber. Two ladies exchange slaps on the face, and you thank madame for a charming evening.

The next morning you are besieged, at your club, for news about Aspasia's reception. She did the honours en souveraine; but it is really a pity she will not be less attentive to the champagne. Everything would have gone off splendidly if that little diablesse Titi had not revived her feud with Fanchette. You are not surprised to hear that Aspasia's goods were seized this morning. The duke must have had more than enough of it by this time, and has, of course, discovered that he has been the laughing-stock of his friends for a long time past. Over the absinthe tripping commentary Aspasia sinks from the ChasusÉe d'Antin to the porter's lodge. A little crÉvÉ taps his teeth with the end of his cane, blinks his tired, wicked eyes, like a monkey in the sun, through his pince-nez, and opines, with a sharp relish, that Aspasia is destined to sweep her five stories—well.

Pah! What kind of discourse is all this for born and bred gentlemen to hold in these days, when the portals of noble knowledge lie wide open, and every man may grace his humanity with some special wisdom of his own!

Bertram, a ribbon in his buttonhole, and arrayed to justify his fame as one of the best-dressed men in Paris, came in haste for me.

"We are late, my dear Q.M. This is not carnival time, remember. We jump early."

The rooms were—but I cannot be at the pains of describing them. The reader knows what SÉvres and Aubusson, St. Gobain, BarbÉdienne, Fourdinois, Jeanseline, Tahan, and the rest, can do for a first floor within a stone's throw of the Boulevard des Italiens. The fashion in all its most striking aspects is here. The presents lie thick as autumn leaves. The bonne says you might fill a portmanteau with madame's fans. Bertram is recognised by a dozen ladies at once. The lady of the house receives me with the lowest curtsey. No ambassadress could be more gracieuse. The toilettes are amazing. It is early, after all Bertram's impatience. The state is that of a duchesse for the present. Bertram leaves me and is lost in the crowd. The conversation is measured and orderly. The dancing begins, and I figure in the quadrille of honour. I am giving my partner—a dark-eyed, vivacious lady—an ice, when I am tapped upon the shoulder by Cosmo Bertram. Bertram has a lady on his arm. He turns to her, saying—

"Permit me to present my friend to you, Madame Trefoil——"

"What! Mrs. Daker!" I cried.

Mrs. Daker's still sweet eyes fell upon me; and she shook my hand; and by her commanding calmness smothered my astonishment, so that the bystanders should not see it.

Later in the evening she said—passing me in the crowd—"Come and see me."

I did not—I could not—next morning, tell Lucy nor Mrs. Rowe.