“How do you mean, with twenty pounds?” the old man asked, lifting his eyebrows while the wrinkles in his forehead made deep shadows in the candlelight. “That’s about what will remain after I have settled my account with you.” “How do you mean, your account with me? I shan’t take any of your money.” Hyacinth’s eyes wandered over his interlocutor’s suggestive shabbiness. “I don’t want to be beastly ungracious, but suppose _you_ should lose your powers.” “My dear boy, I shall have one of the resources that was open to Pinnie. I shall look to you to be the support of my old age.” “You may do so with perfect safety, except for that danger you just mentioned—of my being imprisoned or hanged.” “It’s precisely because I think the danger will be less if you go abroad that I urge you to take this chance. You’ll see the world and you’ll like it better. You’ll think society, even as it is, has some good points,” said Mr. Vetch. “I’ve never liked it better than the last few months.” “Ah well, wait till you see Paris!” “Oh, Paris, Paris,” Hyacinth repeated vaguely—and he stared into the turbid flame of the candle as if making out the most brilliant scenes there: an attitude, accent and expression which the fiddler interpreted both as the vibration of a latent hereditary chord and a symptom of the acute sense of opportunity. BOOK FOURTH XXIX The Boulevard was all alive, brilliant with illuminations, with the variety and gaiety of the crowd, the dazzle of shops and cafés seen through uncovered fronts or immense lucid plates, the flamboyant porches of theatres and the flashing lamps of carriages, the far-spreading murmur of talkers and strollers, the uproar of pleasure and prosperity, the general magnificence of Paris on a perfect evening in June. Hyacinth had been walking about all day—he had walked from rising till bedtime every day of the week spent since his arrival—and now an extraordinary fatigue, a tremendous lassitude had fallen upon him, which, however, was not without its delight of sweet satiety, and he settled himself in a chair beside a little table in front of Tortoni’s not so much to rest from it as to enjoy it. He had seen so much, felt so much, learnt so much, thrilled and throbbed and laughed and sighed so much during the past several days that he was conscious at last of the danger of becoming incoherent to himself and of the need of balancing his accounts.