for, did not trouble himself to talk, and the conversation was
languishing when the architect remarked casually:

"By-the-by! As I was going to Bellevue yesterday on business
of my own, I came upon that actress of yours, young man, at her
gate... oh! a rubbishy little villa, run up to last through a
love affair, standing in six square yards of garden, meant to
give a stock-broker some sort of notion what the country's like.
She invited me in--but what was the use?"...

She was at Bellevue! Jean forgot all the humiliating details
the old man had told him, retaining the one fact only, that she
was at Bellevue and it was possible to see her there in the sweet
intimacy of the country.

He got up to go. Monsieur Tudesco caught him by the skirt of his
jacket to detain him:

"My young friend, you have my admiration; for I see you rise
on daring pinions above the hindrances of a lowly station to
the realms of beauty, fame and wealth. You will yet cull the
splendid blossom that fascinates you, at least I hope so. But how
much better had you loved a simple work-girl, whose affections
you could have beguiled by offering her a penn'orth of fried
potatoes and a seat among the gods to see a melodrama. I fear you
are a dupe of men's opinion, for one woman is not very different
from another, and it is opinion, that mistress of the world, and
nothing else, which sets a high price on some and a low one on
others. Do you profit, my young and very dear friend, by the
experience afforded me by the vicissitudes of fortune, which