“My meaning is clear. A girl in your position may receive all the homage that is offered, provided she receives it with a dignified aloofness implying clearly that she has no favours to bestow in return beyond the favour of her smile. If she is wise she will see to it that the homage is always offered collectively by her admirers, and that no single one amongst them shall ever have the privilege of approaching her alone. If she is wise she will give no encouragement, nourish no hopes that it may afterwards be beyond her power to deny realization.” “How? You dare?” “I know my world. And I know M. de La Tour d’Azyr,” he answered her. “He is a man without charity, without humanity almost; a man who takes what he wants wherever he finds it and whether it is given willingly or not; a man who reckons nothing of the misery he scatters on his self-indulgent way; a man whose only law is force. Ponder it, Climene, and ask yourself if I do you less than honour in warning you.” He went out on that, feeling a degradation in continuing the subject. The days that followed were unhappy days for him, and for at least one other. That other was Leandre, who was cast into the profoundest dejection by M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s assiduous attendance upon Climene. The Marquis was to be seen at every performance; a box was perpetually reserved for him, and invariably he came either alone or else with his cousin M. de Chabrillane. On Tuesday of the following week, Andre-Louis went out alone early in the morning. He was out of temper, fretted by an overwhelming sense of humiliation, and he hoped to clear his mind by walking. In turning the corner of the Place du Bouffay he ran into a slightly built, sallow-complexioned gentleman very neatly dressed in black, wearing a tie-wig under a round hat. The man fell back at sight of him, levelling a spy-glass, then hailed him in a voice that rang with amazement. “Moreau! Where the devil have you been hiding yourself these months?” It was Le Chapelier, the lawyer, the leader of the Literary Chamber of Rennes. “Behind the skirts of Thespis,” said Scaramouche. “I don’t understand.” “I didn’t intend that you should. What of yourself, Isaac? And what of the world which seems to have been standing still of late?” “Standing still!” Le Chapelier laughed. “But where have you been, then? Standing still!” He pointed across the square to a café under the shadow of the gloomy prison. “Let us go and drink a bavaroise. You are of all men the man we want, the man we have been seeking everywhere, and--behold!--you drop from the skies into my path.” They crossed the square and entered the café.