Jean did please himself; he left Henri in an outer court, and hardly knowing what led him, Jean went straight through the long corridor to the little room at the end where against her red curtain the Venus of the soul leans a little forward in tender welcome to her worshippers. Jean stood there for a long time, his hat in his hand, his eyes full of tears, looking at her. He felt as if amongst a crowd of hostile strangers he had seen his mother’s face.
There are certain moments in life that can never be repeated—one’s first great sorrow—one’s first great temptation—and one’s first sight of a divinely beautiful created thing.
Henri regarded Jean with perplexity when he came out of the Louvre.
“Monsieur le Baron has perhaps met a friend?” he asked inquisitively.
Jean blushed a little.
“Yes,” he said simply, “I have met a friend.”
“Monsieur begins well,” replied Henri with relief. “In Paris one needs friends. And now for the Bank, Monsieur le Baron. This to your left here is the Luxembourg; in the summer the garden has a most chic appearance. One finds there the smartest nursemaids in Paris; there are also pictures within. I have an idea that we may find Monsieur rooms behind the Luxembourg. I shall make the endeavour; since Monsieur is to be alone at first, cheerful surroundings are of importance. Here is the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas, as Monsieur le Baron sees.”
Jean hesitated a moment before the heavy front of his future prison. He knew quite well it would be to him a prison, and he feared his first deliberate entrance into it. He had not realized how he had counted on his light-hearted, unembarrassed uncle to help him make the first plunge into a serious life, but he remembered that he was after all Jean D’Ucelles, and that he would not have liked the Venus of Milo to be ashamed of him; so he pushed back the heavy doors and entered, presenting his letter quite firmly to a youth who was under the impression that it was his place as doorkeeper to impede as far as possible anyone who wished to go out or in. After a contemptuous stare at Jean, he turned the letter over, whistled, and vanished. By and by a much more important individual requested Jean to follow him; and he passed through a green-baize door shrouded in mystery, and found himself in the Directors’ room.
The Director gave him fully five minutes; he told him where to go next morning, and said that he might begin his duties then, and that the head clerk would tell him what to do. The Director asked after the Comte D’Ucelles and suggested that some day Jean might dine with him. Then he rang the bell and dismissed him. The one idea that had come to Jean during this important interview was that there was something the matter with his clothes. He explained his fears to Henri and consulted him about Romain’s tailor, though he thought he would probably prove too expensive.
“Why should Monsieur le Baron pay for his clothes at all?” asked Henri. “The name is the same.”