celebrated French physician named Bacourt, and a young author whom
Savarin had admitted into his clique and declared to be of rare promise.
This author, whose real name was Gustave Rameau, but who, to prove, I
suppose, the sincerity of that scorn for ancestry which he professed,
published his verses under the patrician designation of Alphonse de
Valcour, was about twenty-four, and might have passed at the first glance
for younger; but, looking at him closely, the signs of old age were
already stamped on his visage.

He was undersized, and of a feeble slender frame. In the eyes of women
and artists the defects of his frame were redeemed by the extraordinary
beauty of the face. His black hair, carefully parted in the centre, and
worn long and flowing, contrasted the whiteness of a high though narrow
forehead, and the delicate pallor of his cheeks. His feature, were very
regular, his eyes singularly bright; but the expression of the face spoke
of fatigue and exhaustion; the silky locks were already thin, and
interspersed with threads of silver; the bright eyes shone out from
sunken orbits; the lines round the mouth were marked as they are in the
middle age of one who has lived too fast.

It was a countenance that might have excited a compassionate and tender
interest but for something arrogant and supercilious in the expression,-
something that demanded not tender pity but enthusiastic admiration. Yet
that expression was displeasing rather to men than to women; and one
could well conceive that, among the latter, the enthusiastic admiration
it challenged would be largely conceded.

The conversation at dinner was in complete contrast to that at the
Americans' the day before. There the talk, though animated, had been
chiefly earnest and serious; here it was all touch and go, sally and