those to whom the boulevard allows a dubious and fugitive role of
celebrity, and whom it greets with a slight flutter: the turning of
heads, a murmur of comment, and the incredulous boulevard smile, which
seems to say: "You see? Madame and monsieur passing there--evidently
they think we still believe in them!"

This flutter heralded and followed the passing of a white touring-car
with the procession one afternoon, just before the Grand Prix, though it
needed no boulevard celebrity to make the man who lolled in the tonneau
conspicuous. Simply for THAT, notoriety was superfluous; so were the
remarkable size and power of his car; so was the elaborate touring-
costume of flannels and pongee he wore; so was even the enamelled
presence of the dancer who sat beside him. His face would have done it
without accessories.

My old friend, George Ward, and I had met for our aperitif at the
Terrace Larue, by the Madeleine, when the white automobile came snaking
its way craftily through the traffic. Turning in to pass a victoria on
the wrong side, it was forced down to a snail's pace near the curb and
not far from our table, where it paused, checked by a blockade at the
next corner. I heard Ward utter a half-suppressed guttural of what I
took to be amazement, and I did not wonder.

The face of the man in the tonneau detached him to the spectator's gaze
and singled him out of the concourse with an effect almost ludicrous in
its incongruity. The hair was dark, lustrous and thick, the forehead
broad and finely modelled, and certain other ruinous vestiges of youth
and good looks remained; but whatever the features might once have shown
of honour, worth, or kindly semblance had disappeared beyond all tracing
in a blurred distortion. The lids of one eye were discoloured and