"Messieurs les étudiens
Montez á la Chaumière!"
that he never heard a knock at his door, and he looked up with an impatient frown on his white, broad forehead as a man entered sans cérémonie.
"Mon Dieu! Ernest," cried his friend, "what the devil are you doing here with your pipe and your pastels, when I've been waiting at Tortoni's a good half-hour, and at last, out of patience, drove here to see what on earth had become of you?"
"My dear fellow, I beg you a thousand pardons," said Vaughan, lazily. "I was sketching this, and you and your horses went clean out of my head, I honestly confess."
"And your breakfast too, it seems," said De Concressault, glancing at the table. "Is it Madame de Mélusine or the little Bluette whose portrait absorbs you so much? No, by Jove! it's a prettier woman than either of 'em. If she's like that, take me to see her this instant. What glorious gold hair! I adore your countrywomen when they've hair that color. Where did you get that face? Is she a duchess, or a danseuse, a little actress you're going to patronise, or a millionnaire you're going to marry?"
"I can't tell you," laughed Vaughan. "I've not an idea who she may be. I saw her last evening coming out of the Français, and picked up her bouquet for her as she was getting into her carriage. The face was young, the smile very pretty and bright, and, as they daguerreotyped themselves in my mind, I thought I might as well transfer them to paper before newer beauties chased them out of it."
"Diable! and you don't know who she is? However, we'll soon find out. That gold hair mustn't be lost. But get your breakfast, pray, Ernest, and let us be off to poor Armand's sale."
"That's the way we mourn our dead friends," said Vaughan, with a sneer, pouring out his coffee. "Armand is jesting, laughing, and smoking with us one day, the next he's pitched out of his carriage going down to Asnières, and all we think of is—that his horses are for sale. If I were found in the Morgue to-morrow, your first emotion, Emile, would be, 'Vaughan's De l'Orme will be sold. I must go and bid for it directly."
De Concressault laughed as he looked up at a miniature of Marion de l'Orme, once taken for the Marquis of Gordon. "I fancy, mon garçon, there'll be too many sharks after all your possessions for me to stand any chance."
"True enough," said Vaughan; "and I question if they'll wait till my death before they come down on 'em. But I don't look forward. I take life as it comes. Vogue la galère! At least, I've lived, not vegetated." And humming his refrain,