“Certainly,” said he. “I heard a great deal about his pictures at the last Salon. Talent has immense privileges.” he added, observing the artist’s red ribbon. “That distinction, which we must earn at the cost of our blood and long service, you win in your youth; but all glory is of the same kindred,” he said, laying his hand on his Cross of Saint-Louis. Hippolyte murmured a few words of acknowledgment, and was silent again, satisfied to admire with growing enthusiasm the beautiful girl’s head that charmed him so much. He was soon lost in contemplation, completely forgetting the extreme misery of the dwelling. To him Adelaide’s face stood out against a luminous atmosphere. He replied briefly to the questions addressed to him, which, by good luck, he heard, thanks to a singular faculty of the soul which sometimes seems to have a double consciousness. Who has not known what it is to sit lost in sad or delicious meditation, listening to its voice within, while attending to a conversation or to reading? An admirable duality which often helps us to tolerate a bore! Hope, prolific and smiling, poured out before him a thousand visions of happiness; and he refused to consider what was going on around him. As confiding as a child, it seemed to him base to analyze a pleasure. After a short lapse of time he perceived that the old lady and her daughter were playing cards with the old gentleman. As to the satellite, faithful to his function as a shadow, he stood behind his friend’s chair watching his game, and answering the player’s mute inquiries by little approving nods, repeating the questioning gestures of the other countenance. “Du Halga, I always lose,” said the gentleman. “You discard badly,” replied the Baronne de Rouville. “For three months now I have never won a single game,” said he. “Have you the aces?” asked the old lady. “Yes, one more to mark,” said he. “Shall I come and advise you?” said Adelaide. “No, no. Stay where I can see you. By Gad, it would be losing too much not to have you to look at!” At last the game was over. The gentleman pulled out his purse, and, throwing two louis d’or on the table, not without temper-- “Forty francs,” he exclaimed, “the exact sum.--Deuce take it! It is eleven o’clock.” “It is eleven o’clock,” repeated the silent figure, looking at the painter. The young man, hearing these words rather more distinctly than all the others, thought it time to retire. Coming back to the world of ordinary ideas, he found a few commonplace remarks to make, took leave of the Baroness, her daughter, and the two strangers, and went away, wholly possessed by the first raptures of true love, without attempting to analyze the little incidents of the evening.