“It is not permitted to get tipsy in the ‘Landlust,’” said she, like one talking in her sleep. Ned jumped to his feet quite violently. “Take my order,” he shouted, “or I’ll come and kiss every woman in the house, beginning with Madame van Roon!” She vanished, suddenly terrified, in a whisk of skirts, and the door clapped behind her. The young gentleman laughed and resumed his seat. “So, Méricourt has found grace?” said he; “and grace is not necessarily to be gracious, it seems. Yet, you still come here! And why, M. Boppard?” The student shook his head. His face had grown much happier in a certain prospect. “Why do I, monsieur? Can I say? Of a truth it ceases to be the place of my affections; yet--I do not know. The bird will visit and revisit its robbed nest; will sit on the familiar twig and call up, perhaps, a vision of the little blue eggs in the moss. I have been content here. I cling, doubtless, to the old illusions that are vanished.” “Amongst which is the Club of Nature’s Gentry?” “Hush!” The wine was brought in as he spoke. For what reason soever, Ned’s argument had prevailed. Probably decorum would not risk a scene dangerous to its reputation. “Hush!” murmured the sizar, twinkling and portentous in one, when they were left alone again. “It is vanished, as monsieur says. It ceased, morally and practically, with the disappearance of M. de St Denys.” “Whither has he gone, then?” “It is supposed to Paris; and may the curse of God follow him!” Ned paused in the act of drinking. “What do you say, M. Boppard?” “He was a liar, monsieur. He used us to his purpose and, when that was accomplished, he flung us aside.” “And his purpose?” The sizar dropped his voice to a whisper. “Our queen, monsieur,” he said, “our queen, that represented to us the beautiful ideal of all our most passionate aspirations! He seemed to avow in his attitude towards her the sincerity of his code of honourable socialism. He lied to us all. He converted her nobility to the uses of a common intrigue; and from the consequences of his crime he fled like a coward, and left her to bear the curses of her people and the sneers of the community.” “Yes?” said Ned; and he took a long draught, for he was thirsty. Indeed, he had foreseen all this. The student’s eyes filled with tears. “She was much to us--to me, this Mademoiselle Lambertine,” he said pitifully. “If there were mercy in the world, she should have been allowed to bury her dishonour with her dead child in the church yonder.” Ned reached across and patted his companion’s arm. “You are a very amiable little Boppard,” he said. “Monsieur,” answered the student, “for whatever you may observe in me that is better than the commonplace, she is responsible.” “It shall go to her credit some day, be assured. And now, what is this other matter? It is not only the fall of its idol, the discovery of monseigneur’s baseness, that has sobered the community of Méricourt?” “By no means.”