Then what? I think that Bonaparte, Talleyrand, Bernadotte and many others would have smiled a smile of the most profound contempt for the dying revolutionary who had caught no treasure in the great troubled sea of politics, and I have only to think of the two little scenes which fixed the bitter crisis in my memory to smile a no less contemptuous smile at myself. However, after my tour in Greece, I returned to prepare for a longer stay in the Orient, and a visit to Egypt and Asia Minor in the month of October, to begin there that series of pictures upon our Lord, conceived in their natural environment, which would have been the definitive work of my maturity if another had not anticipated me. Chance had prevented me meeting Jacques and Camille between these two trips. I only know that the latter was more celebrated than ever and the former had married. He had decided at last to pluck the ripe pear, and he had done so under the wisest conditions. He had married a widow of about his own age who was very rich and without children, with sufficient to provide him in his maturity with a luxurious home without the aid of his copy. But as he had not deigned to add a friendly word to the wedding card he sent me I had not written to him. That absolute suppression of intercourse between us hardly allowed me to expect to see him enter, as he did the other day, my studio, looking a little older, but with as clear an eye, as satirical a mouth, and as well-dressed and smart a person as ever. Had we met on the previous evening he could not have shaken hands with gayer cordiality, and at once without waiting to hear my news began— “You don’t know the pleasure I feel in seeing you again. When will you come and dine and be presented to Madam Molan? You shall see that I have been lucky in the marriage lottery. I am sure you will be very pleased with her. She knows, too, how I like you. Yes, we have not met lately, but that is no reason for forgetting. What have you been doing since we had our last chat? It is two years ago; how time passes! I knew that you had gone to the Orient. I heard of you through Laurens, the Consul at Cairo. You see, I followed your movements from afar. But tell me,” he went on, after I had replied to him in some embarrassment. These subtle cordialities after such indifference still disconcerted me a little. “Yes, tell me. Have you seen Camille Favier?” “Me?” I cried, and I felt that I was blushing under his indulgent, ironical look, “never. Why do you ask that?” “Ah, my dear boy,” he said laughing, and this time with a gay laugh which displayed his white teeth, which had remained quite sound though he was forty, “you were born simple and simple you will remain.” “I understand you less and less,” I replied somewhat impatiently.