“It’s a kind of society, to which he and I and a good many others belong. There is no harm in telling him that,” the young man went on. “I advise you not to tell it to Mademoiselle; she is quite in the old ideas,” Madame Poupin suggested to Hyacinth, tasting her _tisane_. Hyacinth sat baffled and wondering, looking from his fellow-labourer in Soho to his new acquaintance opposite. “If you have some plan, something to which one can give one’s self, I think you might have told me,” he remarked, in a moment, to Poupin. The latter merely gazed at him a while; then he said to the strange young man, “He is a little jealous of you. But there is no harm in that; it’s of his age. You must know him, you must like him. We will tell you his history some other day; it will make you feel that he belongs to us in fact. It is an accident that he hasn’t met you here before.” “How could _ces messieurs_ have met, when M. Paul never comes? He doesn’t spoil us!” Madame Poupin cried. “Well, you see I have my little sister at home to take care of, when I ain’t at the shop,” M. Paul explained. “This afternoon it was just a chance; there was a lady we know came in to sit with her.” “A lady—a real lady?” “Oh yes, every inch,” said M. Paul, laughing. “Do you like them to thrust themselves into your apartment like that, because you have the _désagrément_ of being poor? It seems to be the custom in this country, but it wouldn’t suit me at all,” Madame Poupin continued. “I should like to see one of _ces dames_—the real ones—coming in to sit with me!” “Oh, you are not a cripple; you have got the use of your legs!” “Yes, and of my arms!” cried the Frenchwoman. “This lady looks after several others in our court, and she reads to my sister.” “Oh, well, you are patient, you English.” “We shall never do anything without that,” said M. Paul, with undisturbed good-humour. “You are perfectly right; you can’t say that too often. It will be a tremendous job, and only the strong will prevail,” his host murmured, a little wearily, turning his eyes to Madame Poupin, who approached slowly, holding the _tisane_ in a rather full bowl, and tasting it again and yet again as she came. Hyacinth had been watching his fellow-visitor with deepening interest; a fact of which M. Paul apparently became aware, for he said, presently, giving a little nod in the direction of the bed, “He says we ought to know each other. I’m sure I have nothing against it. I like to know folk, when they’re worth it!” Hyacinth was too pleased with this even to take it up; it seemed to him, for a moment, that he couldn’t touch it gracefully enough. But he said, with sufficient eagerness, “Will you tell me all about your plot?” “Oh, it’s no plot. I don’t think I care much for plots.” And with his mild, steady, light-blue English eye, M. Paul certainly had not much the appearance of a conspirator. “Isn’t it a new era?” asked Hyacinth, rather disappointed.