Except Miss Thomas. Always except Miss Thomas herself. She received him with much grace of manner, but seemed to have very little to say. Vane found that he had to talk largely against time; and this rather disappointed him at first. At first, but afterwards he decided that he liked this still mood best. There was no dimple and sparkle, but it was quiet and companionable. She is not like "a young lady," Vane thought; still less like a French young lady. She is neither _ingénue_ nor _formée_; she is young, bright, a good fellow. One might play Paul to her Francesca without a _dénouement_. How could he have thought her ill-trained? Though she had evidently thought little, read less, and been taught nothing at all, she had a sweet natural elegance of her own. Vane found time to observe all this between his sentences. They were not very well connected. Was he going to Mrs. Roster's ball? she had asked.--No, he thought not. He did not know her.--He had better go. Every one would be there. "Then I fear I am no one," said Vane. "I am not even invited." He was sorry to fancy that her interest in him flagged a little after this. She had met him at a good house, but, after all, he might be a mere protégé of John Haviland's. Mr. Haviland was always picking up queer people. A moment after this Vane took his leave. Why should he not go to Mrs. Roster's? he said to himself. He could not always be brooding on the addled eggs of the past. After all, the world was all that was left him, and in the world the dance still went on merrily, and maidens' eyes were bright; leaves still were green, and the foam of the sea as white as ever, and wine still sparkled in the glass. He said this to himself with a somewhat sceptical grin, for, like most Frenchmen with whom he had lived, he took little pleasure in drinking. A Frenchman drinks to go to the devil: he rarely goes to the devil because he drinks. Yet he was, or at all events he had been, fond of society. He had liked light and gay faces, and bright conversation, and heartlessness--if there must be heartlessness--masked under suave manners and intellectual sympathy. Out of society the heartlessness was just as real, he had used to think, only ruder; there is at least as much snobbishness, and it is more offensively vulgar. He could not stay always out from all society. He must find something to pull him back into the world; he must get some grip of life. Hitherto his only foothold had been his clear necessity of making eighteen thousand francs a year to send to his mother.