However, it has to be recorded that despite all his endeavours, despite all his artifices, M. le Roué remains a shaky, shrunken old fellow, with scanty white hair, a tired, pallid face and a thin, feeble voice. Once upon a time—say forty years ago—he was deemed one of the most brilliant, the most irresistible ornaments of _le Tout Paris_; but to-day—forty years after—he has attained that tragic period in the life of a vain, superannuated _viveur_, when no one, except his valet, is permitted to see him until two o’clock in the afternoon; and thus no one, save that faithful attendant, could give us a picture of M. le Roué when, after the curtains have been drawn and daylight has been let into the room, the old gentleman is served with his cup of chocolate and morsel of dry toast. Still, if we cannot witness his awakening, we may assuredly assume that M. le Roué is not a pleasant spectacle in the morning. And it is equally safe to suppose that his temper is detestable, his language deplorable, when the valet shaves his wan cheek, and fastens his stays, and helps him into his heavy fur coat; and thus, in a word, turns him into the impeccable if rickety old beau who lunches every day on the stroke of two o’clock in Sucré’s white-and-gold restaurant. “Monsieur se porte bien?” inquires the _maître d’hôtel_, respectfully handing him the menu. “Pas mal, pas mal,” replies M. le Roué, in his thin, feeble voice. And although the old gentleman has been advised to keep strictly to a diet of plain foods and Vichy water, both the dishes and the wines that he orders are elaborate and rich. Once again I exclaim: “Wonderful, O most wonderful M. le Roué,” and once again I demand: “Who could fail to admire him?” He declines to belong to the past, he refuses to go into retirement; so long as he can stand up in his stays he is heroically determined to lead the life of a _viveur_, a rake. See him, here in Sucré’s restaurant, revelling over his lobster; behold him kissing his trembling, white hand to the lady book-keeper, a handsome young woman with sparkling diamond earrings; and hear him, moreover, entertaining Joseph, the _maître d’hôtel_, with an account of the lively supper-party he presided over last night, at which Mesdemoiselles Liane de Luneville and Marguerite de Millefleurs (beautiful, brilliant ornaments of the _demi-monde_) were present, and Mademoiselle Pauline Boum, of the Casino de Paris, performed her latest “eccentric” dance. All this from a gentleman half-way through the seventies! All this from a shaky, shrunken old fellow who ought, at the present moment, to be taking a careful constitutional in the Parc Monceau on the arm of some mild, elderly female relative—instead of rejoicing over lobster and Château-Yquem in Sucré’s white-and-gold restaurant. “Monsieur is extraordinary,” says the _maître d’hôtel_, by way of flattery. “Monsieur is a monster,” says the handsome lady book-keeper, shaking her diamond earrings.