else ever learned; but simultaneously in the minds of these two
adventurers--and surely, to call a man an adventurer does not
necessarily imply that he is a _chevalier d'industrie_--a thought,
tinged with regret and loneliness, was born; to have and to hold a maid
like that. Love at first sight is the false metal sometimes offered by
poets as gold, in quatrains, distiches, verses, and stanzas, tolerated
because of the license which allows them to give passing interest the
name of love. If these two men thought of love it was only as
bystanders, witnessing the pomp and panoply--favored phrase!--of Venus
and her court from a curbstone, might have thought of it. Doubtless
they had had an affair here and there, over the broad face of the
world, but there had never been any barbs on the arrows, thus easily
plucked out.

"Sometimes, knowing that I shall never be rich, I have desired a
title," remarked Fitzgerald humorously.

"And what would you do with it?" curiously.

"Oh, I'd use it against porters, and waiters, and officials. There's
nothing like it. I have observed a good deal. It has a magic sound,
like Orpheus' lyre; the stiffest back becomes supine at the first
twinkle of it."

"I should like to travel with you, Mr. Fitzgerald," said Breitmann
musingly. "You would be good company. Some day, perhaps, I'll try
your prescription; but I'm only a poor devil of a homeless, landless
baron."

Fitzgerald sat up. "You surprise me."