Mistress of social forms, Lady Auriol, after sweeping Elodie into her net, caught Horatio Bakkus and through reference to her own hospital experiences during the war, wrung from him the avowal of his concerts for the wounded in Paris. "How splendid of you! By the way, how do you spell your name? It's an uncommon one." "With two k's." "I wonder if you have anything to do with an old friend of my fattier, Archdeacon Bakkus?" "My eldest brother." "No, really? One of my earliest recollections is his buying a prize boar from my father." "Just like the dear fellow's prodigality," said Bakkus. "He had a whole Archdeaconry to his hand for nothing. I've lately spent a couple of months with him in Westmorland, so I know." "How small the world is," said Lady Auriol to Lackaday. "Too small," said he. "Oh," said Auriol blankly. "Have you seen our good friends, the Verity-Stewarts lately?" She had. They were in perfect health. They were wondering what had become of him. "And indeed, General," she flashed, "what _has_ become of you?" "It is not good," said Elodie, in quick anticipation, "that the General should neglect his English friends." There sounded the note of proprietorship, audible to anybody. Auriol's eyes dwelt for a second on Elodie; then she turned to Lackaday. "Madame Patou is quite right." Said he, with one of his rare flights into imagery, "I was but a shooting star across the English firmament." "Encore une étoile qui file, File, file et disparait!" "Oh no, my dear friend," laughed Bakkus. "He can't persuade us, Lady Auriol, that he is afflicted with the morbidezza of 1830." "_Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela?_" asked Elodie, sharply. "It was a fashion long ago, my dear, for poets to assume the gaiety of a funeral. Even Béranger who wrote _Le Roi d'Yvetot_--you know it--" "Naturally, '_Il était un roi d'Yvetot!_'"--cried Elodie, who had learned it at school. "Well--of course. Even Béranger could not escape the malady of his generation. Do you remember"--his swift glance embraced us all--"Longfellow's criticism of European poets of that epoch, in his prose masterpiece, _Hyperion?_ He refers to Salis and Matthisson, but Lamartine and people of his kidney come in--'Melancholy gentlemen' pardon, my dear Elodie, if I quote it in English--'Melancholy gentlemen to whom life was only a dismal swamp, upon whose margin they walked with cambric handkerchiefs in their hands, sobbing and sighing and making signals to Death to come and ferry them over the lake.' _Cela veut dire_," he made a marvellous French paraphrase for Elodie's benefit. "_Comprends pas_," she shrugged at the boredom of literary allusion. "I don't see what all that has to do with André. I shall see, Mademoiselle, that he writes to his friends." "You will be doing them a great service, Madame," replied Auriol.