Linked by this new, if unstable, bond of sympathy, neither of the friends understood, during the months that followed, that their paths, which had so long lain parallel, were gradually but inevitably diverging. Jean was now wrapped heart and soul in the competition for the Prix de Rome, and, as he said himself, en charrette eternally. Even the work of his comrade, which formerly had held him spell-bound, lost for him, little by little, much of its compellant charm. His nimble mind, busy with the stern, symmetrical lines of columns and the intricate proportioning of capitals, drifted imperceptibly away from its one-time appreciation of pure imagery. He returned later at night from the atelier, consumed the meal they ate in common with growing impatience, and was busy with his calques again before Grégoire had fairly finished his coffee. The evening readings, grown shorter and shorter, were finally abandoned altogether, and, oftener than not, Jean was totally oblivious to the presence of Grégoire, correcting his manuscript at the little desk, or his noiseless departure with the stamped envelope under his arm. Had he been told, he would have denied his defection with the scorn bred by conviction. It was not that he loved his comrade less, but only that the growing promise of the Prix de Rome lay, like the marvel of dawn, on the horizon of the immediate future, blinding his eyes to all beside. For Jean le Gai was finding himself, and in the crescent light of that new and wonderful discovery whatever had been bright before grew tawdry. Only one evidence remained of what had been. Le Pochard, with his absurd inanity, was yet a feature of every dinner in the rue de Seine, and because Grégoire invented daily some new drollery in connection with their senseless toy, Jean was unaware that things were no longer the same,--that his friend was thinner and more nervous, that the circles had deepened under his eyes, that he said no word of his work. They laughed together at Le Pochard, and laughed again at their own amusement. So the days went by and still their paths diverged,--Jean's toward the sungilt hills of promise and prosperity, Grégoire's toward the valley of shadow that a man must tread alone. Despite his proclivities, neither foresaw the end of Le Pochard. So gradual was his decline toward utter degradation that the varnish was gone from his narrow boots and his round, weak face, and his simple attire was frayed and worn, before they had remarked the change. Then, one night, as Grégoire wound him, the key turned futilely in the spring. Placed in his accustomed position on the table, Le Pochard made one feeble gesture of surrender with his bottle, one unavailing effort to raise his absinthe to his lips, and, reeling dizzily, crashed down upon the floor, his debauches done with forever.