he undertook to realize the third great object of his life, the gaining
of social position. To the period of avidity had succeeded, as it
frequently does with those formidable handlers of money, the period of
vanity. Being now a widower, he aimed at his daughter's marriage with a
strength of will and a complication of combinations equal to his former
efforts, and that struggle for connection with high life was disguised
beneath the cloak of the most systematically adopted politeness of
deportment. How had he found the means, in the midst of struggles and
hardships, to refine himself so that the primitive broker and speculator
were almost unrecognizable in the baron of fifty-four, decorated with
several orders, installed in a magnificent palace, the father of a
charming daughter, and himself an agreeable conversationalist,
a courteous gentleman, an ardent sportsman? It is the secret of those
natures created for social conquest, like a Napoleon for war and a
Talleyrand for diplomacy. Dorsenne asked himself the question
frequently, and he could not solve it. Although he boasted of watching
the Baron with an intellectual curiosity, he could not restrain a shudder
of antipathy each time he met the eyes of the man.

And on this particular morning it was especially disagreeable to him that
those eyes had seen him making his unoffending notes, although there was
scarcely a shade of gentle condescension--that of a great lord who
patronizes a great artist--in the manner in which Hafner addressed him.

"Do not inconvenience yourself for me, dear sir," said he to Dorsenne.
"You work from nature, and you are right. I see that your next novel
will touch upon the ruin of our poor Prince d'Ardea. Do not be too hard
on him, nor on us."

The artist could not help coloring at that benign pleasantry. It was all