“My child, you’re always welcome,” said Eustache Poupin, taking Hyacinth’s hand in both his own and holding it for some moments. An impression had come to our young man, immediately, that they were talking about him before he appeared and that they would rather have been left to talk at their ease. He even thought he saw in Poupin’s face the kind of consciousness that comes from detection, or at least interruption, in a nefarious act. With Poupin, however, it was difficult to tell; he always looked so heated and exalted, so like a conspirator defying the approach of justice. Hyacinth took in the others: they were standing as if they had shuffled something on the table out of sight, as if they had been engaged in the manufacture of counterfeit coin. Poupin kept hold of his hand; the Frenchman’s ardent eyes, fixed, unwinking, always expressive of the greatness of the occasion, whatever the occasion was, had never seemed to him to protrude so far from the head. “Ah my dear friend, _nous causions justement de vous_,” Eustache remarked as if this were a very extraordinary fact. “Oh _nous causions, nous causions_——!” his wife exclaimed as if to deprecate a loose overstatement. “One may mention a friend, I suppose, in the way of conversation, without taking such a liberty.” “A cat may look at a king, as your English proverb says,” added Schinkel jocosely. He smiled so hard at his own pleasantry that his eyes closed up and vanished—an effect which Hyacinth, who had observed it before, thought particularly unbecoming to him, appearing as it did to administer the last perfection to his ugliness. He would have consulted his facial interests by cultivating blankness. “Oh a king, a king——!” Poupin demurred, shaking his head up and down. “That’s what it’s not good to be, _au point où nous en sommes_.” “I just came in to wish you good-night,” said Hyacinth. “I’m afraid it’s rather late for a call, though Schinkel doesn’t seem to think so.” “It’s always too late, _mon très-cher_, when you come,” the Frenchman returned. “You know if you’ve a place at our fireside.” “I esteem it too much to disturb it,” said Hyacinth, smiling and looking round at the three. “We can easily sit down again; we’re a comfortable party. Put yourself beside me.” And the Frenchman drew a chair close to the one, at the table, that he had just quitted. “He has had a long walk, he’s tired—he’ll certainly accept a little glass,” Madame Poupin pronounced with decision as she moved toward the tray containing the small gilded service of liqueurs.