printer was more attainable, and the correction of proofs amused me for a
while. I wrote another play; and when the hieing after theatrical managers
began to lose its attractiveness my thoughts reverted to France, which
always haunted me; and which now possessed me as if with the sweet and
magnetic influence of home.

How important my absence from Paris seemed to me; and how Paris rushed into
my eyes!--Paris--public ball-rooms, _cafés_, the models in the studio
and the young girls painting, and Marshall, Alice, and Julien.
Marshall!--my thoughts pointed at him through the intervening streets and
the endless procession of people coming and going.

"M. Marshall, is he at home?" "M. Marshall left here some months ago." "Do
you know his address?" "I'll ask my husband." "Do you know M. Marshall's
address!" "Yes, he's gone to live in the Rue de Douai." "What number?" "I
think it is fifty-four." "Thanks." "Coachman, wake up; drive me to the Rue
de Douai."

But Marshall was not to be found at the Rue de Douai; and he had left no
address. There was nothing for it but to go to the studio; I should be able
to obtain news of him there,--perhaps find him. But when I pulled aside the
curtain, the accustomed piece of slim nakedness did not greet my eyes; only
the blue apron of an old woman enveloped in a cloud of dust. "The gentlemen
are not here to-day, the studio is closed; I am sweeping up." "Oh, and
where is M. Julien?" "I cannot say, sir: perhaps at the _café_, or
perhaps he is gone to the country." This was not very encouraging, and now,
my enthusiasm thoroughly damped, I strolled along _le Passage_,
looking at the fans, the bangles and the litter of cheap trinkets that each
window was filled with. On the left at the corner of the Boulevard was our
_café_. As I came forward the waiter moved one of the tin tables, and