Le Pompadour cast a glance across the room to the chair from which his secretary was at the moment summoned by a whispered message from the manager of the restaurant. “He is a student of life and men,” said he. “It is his humour to put the follies of fashion underneath the microscope of a mind as searchingly analytical as a lens.” “I’m glad all Scots are not like that,” said the lady fervently. “Now, you have the real French temperament, and the means to entertain it; your secretary, were he as rich as you, I’m sure would be a skinflint.” “There, I can swear, you misjudge him,” said the Pompadour,—“a man born unhappy, and spoiled for any useful purpose, I am sorry for him.” “Get rid of him—get rid of him!” said the lady, with a cleverly simulated shudder. “What!” said the Pompadour, regarding her with surprise, seeing for the first time cruelty in the mild Madonna eyes. “Upon the secretary’s stipend there depend, you know, the comforts of a poor old Scottish lady—” “There are so many openings for a perambulating conscience! Those canaille! I am sure his frigid countenance spoils your appetite; it would spoil mine—and you eat like a Trappist monk. Is that Scots too?” “Gluttony is the one aristocratic vice to which I could never become accustomed,” he replied. “I was—I was once, as many here to-night would think, quite poor!” She started slightly, looked incredulous. “How provoking it must have been!” she said. “No,” he reflected soberly. “Happiness—to speak platitude—has wonderfully little to do with a bank account. You look so good and wise I thought you had discovered that.” She answered with deliberate acidity— “I quite disagree. I, at all events, could never contemplate poverty with equanimity.” “Not poverty,” he protested eagerly—“not poverty! The young, the earnest, and the hopeful know no poverty; they are not poor—where there is love,” and he searched her eyes as if his very life depended on discovering there a sign of her agreement with his sentiment. She glanced about her at the indications of the speaker’s wealth and prodigality, smiled cynically, tapped him with her fan. “_Farceur_!” said she, “now you are romantic, and to talk romance in seriousness is ridiculous.” Of a sudden he saw her what she really was—vain, cruel, calculating, parched in soul, despite her saintly face. He stared at her, almost stunned by disillusion, seeing the corruption of her nature rise like a scum upon the purple eyes. To the left of his chair the door of the reception salon opened at the moment, and a voice beyond it plucked him from the depths of his despondency. He rose, incredulous, and rushed into the room, where a little old woman, simple and abashed at her surroundings, stood beside the secretary. “Mother!” he exclaimed, with his arms around her, almost doubtful of her actual presence. “I thought it was your wraith.”