"Is that the reason why you did not invite the Marquis?"

"To be sure; I would not shock so pure a Legitimist by contact with the
sons of the people, and make him still colder to myself. No; when he
comes to my house he shall meet lions and _viveurs_ of the _haut ton_,
who will play into my hands by teaching him how to ruin himself in the
quickest manner and in the _genre Regence_. _Bon soir, mon vieux._"




CHAPTER VI.

The next night Graham in vain looked round for Alain in M. Louvier's
salons, and missed his high-bred mien and melancholy countenance.
M. Louvier had been for some four years a childless widower, but his
receptions were not the less numerously attended, nor his establishment
less magnificently monde for the absence of a presiding lady: very much
the contrary; it was noticeable how much he had increased his status and
prestige as a social personage since the death of his unlamented spouse.

To say truth, she had been rather a heavy drag on his triumphal car. She
had been the heiress of a man who had amassed a great deal of money,--not
in the higher walks of commerce, but in a retail trade.

Louvier himself was the son of a rich money-lender; he had entered life
with an ample fortune and an intense desire to be admitted into those
more brilliant circles in which fortune can be dissipated with _eclat_.
He might not have attained this object but for the friendly countenance
of a young noble who was then--