Lafcadio, whose mother had given him five uncles, had never known his father; he was content to regard him as dead and had always refrained from asking questions. As for his uncles (all of them of different nationalities and three of them in the diplomatic service), he had pretty soon perceived that they had no other relationship with him than that which the fair Wanda chose to give them. Now Lafcadio was just nineteen. He had been born in Bucharest in 1874, exactly at the end of the second year which the Comte de Baraglioul had spent there in his official capacity. Now that he had been put on the alert by Julius’s mysterious visit, how was it possible to look upon this as merely a fortuitous coincidence? He made a great effort to read Juste-Agénor’s biography, but the lines danced before his eyes; he just managed to make out that Julius’s father, the Comte de Baraglioul, was a man of considerable importance. The explosion of insolent joy in his heart was so riotous that he thought the outside world must hear it. But no! this covering of flesh was unquestionably solid and impervious. He furtively examined his neighbours--old habitués of the reading-room, all engrossed in their dreary occupations.... He began to calculate: “If he was born in 1821, the Count must be seventy-two by now. _Ma chi sa se vive ancora?..._” He put the dictionary back and went out. The azure sky was clearing itself of a few light clouds which a fresh breeze had sent scudding. “_Importa di domesticare questo nuovo proposito_,” said Lafcadio to himself, who prized above all things the free possession of his soul; and hopeless of reducing so turbulent a thought to order, he resolved to banish it for a moment from his mind. He took Julius’s novel out of his pocket and made a great effort to distract himself with it; but the book had no allurement in it of indirectness or mystery, and nothing could have helped him less to escape from a too urgent self. “And yet it is to the author of _that_ that I am going to-morrow to play at being secretary!” he couldn’t refrain from repeating. He bought a newspaper at a kiosk and went into the Luxembourg. The benches were sopping; he opened the book, sat down on it and unfolded the paper to look at the various items of the day. Suddenly, and as though he had been expecting to find it there, his eye fell upon the following announcement: “It is hoped that Count Juste-Agénor de Baraglioul, whose health has lately given grave cause for anxiety, is now recovering. His condition, however, still remains too precarious to admit of his receiving any but a few intimate friends.”