“I’ve always noticed,” rejoined M. Pigeonneau, “that your desires are more under control than mine. Que voulez-vous? I’m of the old school. Je crois que cette race se perd. I regret the departure of that attractive young person; she has an enchanting smile. Ce sera une femme d’esprit. For the mother, I can console myself. I’m not sure _she_ was a femme d’esprit, though she wished so prodigiously to pass for one. Round, rosy, potelée, she yet had not the temperament of her appearance; she was a femme austère—I made up my mind to that. I’ve often noticed that contradiction in American ladies. You see a plump little woman with a speaking eye and the contour and complexion of a ripe peach, and if you venture to conduct yourself in the smallest degree in accordance with these _indices_, you discover a species of Methodist—of what do you call it?—of Quakeress. On the other hand, you encounter a tall lean angular form without colour, without grace, all elbows and knees, and you find it’s a nature of the tropics! The women of duty look like coquettes, and the others look like alpenstocks! However, we’ve still la belle Madame Roque—a real femme de Rubens, celle-là. It’s very true that to talk to her one must know the Flemish tongue!” I had determined in accordance with my brother’s telegram to go away in the afternoon; so that, having various duties to perform, I left M. Pigeonneau to his ethnic studies. Among other things I went in the course of the morning to the banker’s, to draw money for my journey, and there I found Mr. Ruck with a pile of crumpled letters in his lap, his chair tipped back and his eyes gloomily fixed on the fringe of the green plush table-cloth. I timidly expressed the hope that he had got better news from home; whereupon he gave me a look in which, considering his provocation, the habit of forlorn patience was conspicuous. He took up his letters in his large hand and, crushing them together, held it out to me. “That stack of postal matter,” he said, “is worth about five cents. But I guess,” he added, rising, “that I know where I am by this time.” When I had drawn my money I asked him to come and breakfast with me at the little brasserie, much favoured by students, to which I used to resort in the old town. “I couldn’t eat, sir,” he frankly pleaded, “I couldn’t eat. Bad disappointments strike at the seat of the appetite. But I guess I’ll go with you, so as not to be on show down there at the pension. The old woman down there accuses me of turning up my nose at her food. Well, I guess I shan’t turn up my nose at anything now.”