Finally there was Barry Creston himself: a new type, and a disconcerting one. He was not at all the “gilded youth” whom Thyrsis had expected to find; he was a man of about thirty, widely cultured, urbane and gracious in his manner, and quite evidently a man of force. He was altogether free from that crude egotism which Thyrsis had found to be the most prominent characteristic of the American man of wealth. He spoke in French with Armand and in Italian with Scarpi and in German with the head-waiter who worshipped before him; and yet one did not feel that there was any ostentation about it--all this was his _monde_. And although he exhaled an atmosphere of vast wealth, this, too, seemed a matter of course; he assumed that you also were provided with unlimited funds--that all the world, in fact, was in the same fortunate case. Evidently he was well-known at the “Bohême”, for the waiters gathered like flies around the honey-pot, and the august head-waiter himself took the order, and beamed his approval at Barry’s selections. So presently there flowed in a stream of costly viands, served in _outré_ and fantastic fashion--many of them things not known even by name to Thyrsis. There were costly wines as well, and at the end an ice in the shape of a great basket of fruit, wonderfully carved and colored like life, resting upon a slab of ice, which in turn was set in a silver tray with handles. Thyrsis was dazed at all this waste, and at the uproar in the place, where dozens of other parties were squandering money in the same blind fashion, and all laughing, chatting, joining in the choruses with the performers on the stage. Now and then he would catch a little of his host’s conversation, which was of all the capitals of Europe, and of art-worlds, the very existence of which was unknown to him. And then, on his left hand, there was Mlle. Armand, deftly picking off the leaves of an artichoke and dipping them into _mayonnaise_, and saying in her little bird’s voice, “They tell me, Monsieur, that you have _du génie_. Oh, you should go to Paree to live--it is not here that one appreciates _du génie_!” And, then while Thyrsis was working out an explanation of his failure to visit Paris, some one in the café caught sight of Scarpi, and there was a general call for him; and according to the genial custom of the “Bohême” he stood up, amid tumultuous applause, and sang one of his own rollicking songs.