"_Madame ----, est-elle chez elle?_"

"_Oui, Monsieur; si Monsieur veut se donner la peine d'entrer._" And we
were shown into a handsomely-furnished apartment. A lady would enter
hurriedly, and an animated discussion was begun. I did not know French
sufficiently well to follow the conversation, but I remember it always
commenced _mon cher ami_, and was plentifully sprinkled with the phrase
_vous avez tort_. The ladies themselves had only just returned from
Constantinople or Japan, and they were generally involved in mysterious
lawsuits, or were busily engaged in prosecuting claims for several
millions of francs against different foreign governments.

And just as I had watched the chorus girls and mummers, three years
ago, at the Globe Theatre, now, excited by a nervous curiosity, I
watched this world of Parisian adventurers and lights-o'-love. And this
craving for observation of manners, this instinct for the rapid notation
of gestures and words that epitomise a state of feeling, of attitudes
that mirror forth the soul, declared itself a main passion; and it grew
and strengthened, to the detriment of the other Art still so dear to me.
With the patience of a cat before a mouse-hole, I watched and listened,
picking one characteristic phrase out of hours of vain chatter,
interested and amused by an angry or loving glance. Like the midges that
fret the surface of a shadowy stream, these men and women seemed to me;
and though I laughed, danced, and made merry with them, I was not of
them. But with Marshall it was different: they were my amusement, they
were his necessary pleasure. And I knew of this distinction that made
twain our lives; and I reflected deeply upon it. Why could I not live
without an ever-present and acute consciousness of life? Why could I not
love, forgetful of the harsh ticking of the clock in the perfumed