baseness. It does not require to be 'gentilhomme' to feel that: it is
enough to be a Frenchman. Come and see me when you can spare the time.
There is my address. You are the only man in Paris to whom I shall be at
home. Au revoir." And breaking away from Lemercier's clasp, the Marquis
hurried off.




CHAPTER III.

Alain reached the house in which he lodged. Externally a fine house, it
had been the hotel of a great family in the old regime. On the first
floor were still superb apartments, with ceilings painted by Le Brun,
with walls on which the thick silks still seemed fresh. These rooms were
occupied by a rich 'agent de change;' but, like all such ancient palaces,
the upper stories were wretchedly defective even in the comforts which
poor men demand nowadays: a back staircase, narrow, dirty, never lighted,
dark as Erebus, led to the room occupied by the Marquis, which might be
naturally occupied by a needy student or a virtuous 'grisette.' But
there was to him a charm in that old hotel, and the richest 'locataire'
therein was not treated with a respect so ceremonious as that which at
tended the lodger on the fourth story. The porter and his wife were
Bretons; they came from the village of Rochebriant; they had known
Alain's parents in their young days; it was their kinsman who had
recommended him to the hotel which they served: so, when he paused at
the lodge for his key, which he had left there, the porter's wife was in
waiting for his return, and insisted on lighting him upstairs and seeing
to his fire, for after a warm day the night had turned to that sharp
biting cold which is more trying in Paris than even in London.