"Ah, I thought you would want to meet him, and I can assure you that you will not regret it. Pack up and come and stay with us at Passy. There are several charming people staying with us including Renée, the daughter of old Payot. You know whom I mean. Then there is Monsieur Marcel, a philosopher and poet, a cynic in a way, but a first-rate fellow notwithstanding, and lastly a most inquisitive and argumentative young lawyer--Monsieur Duval. With you, my dear colleague, the party will be complete, especially as you are an exponent and past master of agnosticism combined with a mind open to conviction, and possess an aptitude for strictly scientific investigation. I have no doubt that between us we ought to be capable of sifting these mysteries to the bottom. If there is any trickery about it, I can rely on your finding it out and exposing it, but I am fully convinced beforehand that you will not find any." "Que diable, but I have seen enough of Delapine to know that he is incapable of humbug or trickery. All the same, my dear confrère, you have infected me with your enthusiasm, and the programme that you offer me is as tempting as a première at the opera." "Including the renewal of your acquaintance with the charming Mademoiselle Payot," added Villebois with a smile. "Just so. Is there not some poet who says, 'Beauty lends enchantment to the view'?" Villebois rose slowly and surveyed himself in one of the massive mirrors near the window, and smiled complacently at his old friend's levity, while carefully smoothing down the large "wings" of his professional black cravat. "Say rather with Goethe 'Das Ewig Weibliche zieht uns hinan,'" said Villebois, who knew his German remarkably well for a Frenchman. "However," he continued, "I must leave you now. Let me assure you once more what a pleasure it has been to meet you again after such a long absence. We will expect you, then, in two days' time at Passy." "Very good, I will come with pleasure," replied Dr. Riche, "and please pay my respects to Madame Villebois and the others." "Thanks, thanks, au revoir until the day after to-morrow," called out Villebois as he hailed a fiacre, and vanished down the boulevard towards the Louvre. Left to himself, and now fully awakened from the deep reverie which had overshadowed him previous to the arrival of his old friend, Dr. Riche gently drew from his pocket a large and most un-Gallic looking pipe and pouch well supplied with a famous mixture of his own composition, and proceeded to enjoy in open daylight that most delightful but, under the circumstances, most unprofessional luxury, a good smoke.