"Gentlemen!" said Lampron, with a sweep of his arm which took in the
whole of the Place de la Concorde, "allow me to present to you the
intending successor of Counsellor Mouillard, lawyer, of Bourges. Every
inch of him a man of business!"

We were getting near. Crowds were on their way to the exhibition from
all sides, women in spring frocks, many of the men in white waistcoats,
one hand in pocket, gayly flourishing their canes with the other, as much
as to say, "Look at me-well-to-do, jaunty, and out in fine weather." The
turnstiles were crowded, but at last we got through. We made but one
step across the gravel court, the realm of sculpture where antique gods
in every posture formed a mythological circle round the modern busts in
the central walk. There was no loitering here, for my heart was
elsewhere. We cast a look at an old wounded Gaul, an ancestor unhonored
by the crowd, and started up the staircase--no Jeanne to lead the way.
We came to the first room of paintings. Sylvestre beamed like a man who
feels at home.

"Quick, Sylvestre, where is the sketch? Let's hurry to it."

But he dragged me with him around several rooms.

Have you ever experienced the intoxication of color which seizes the
uninitiated at the door of a picture-gallery? So many staring hues
impinge upon the eyes, so many ideas take confused shape and struggle
together in the brain, that the eyes grow weary and the brain harassed.
It hovers undecided like an insect in a meadow full of flowers. The
buzzing remarks of the crowd add to the feeling of intoxication. They
distract one's attention before it can settle anywhere, and carry it off
to where some group is gathered before a great name, a costly frame, an