"What is there to do in Paris in August but to enjoy oneself?" I asked. "I have made friends with an _apache_ and his _gigolette_. We eat bread and cheese and drink bad wine on the fortifications.... In the afternoon I walk. Sometimes I go to the Luxembourg gardens to hear the band bray sad music, or to watch the little boys play _diavolo_, or sail their tiny boats about the fountain pond; sometimes I walk quite silently up the Avenue Gabriel, with its _triste_ line of trees, and dream that I am a Grand Duke; in the evening there are again the _terrasses_ of the cafes, dinner in Montmartre at the Clou, or the Cou-Cou, a _revue_ at La Cigale, but it is all governed, my day and my night, by what happens and by whom I meet.... Have you seen Jacques Blanche's portrait of Nijinsky?" "I think it is Picasso that interests me now," Sitgreaves was saying. "He puts wood and pieces of paper into his composition; architecture, that's what it is.... I don't go to Blanche's any more. It's too delightfully perfect, the atmosphere there.... The books are by all the famous writers, and they are all dedicated to Blanche; the pictures are all of the great men of today, and they are all painted by Blanche; the music is played by the best musicians.... Do you know, I think Blanche is the one man who has made a successful profession of being an amateur--unless one excepts Robert de la Condamine.... You can scarcely call a man who does so much a dilettante. Yes, I think he is an amateur in the best sense." "I met the Countess of Jena there the other day," I responded. "She had scarcely left the room before three people volunteered, _sans rancune_, to tell her story. She is a devout Catholic, and her husband contrived in some way to substitute a spy for the priest in the confessional. He acquired an infinite amount of information, but it didn't do him any good. She is so witty that every one invites her everywhere in spite of her reputation, and he is left to dine alone at the Meurice. Dull men simply are not tolerated in Paris.