Talma looked at Lesec as much as to say: 'The devil is not quite so black as he is painted;' while the worthy collector only shrugged his shoulders, and lifted his eyebrows in pantomimic expression of his inability to comprehend such a sudden change in the atmosphere.

'You must promise to come and dine with me to-morrow,' continued the painter, accompanying his invitation with a smile, or rather a grin, for David's face was very much disfigured by a wen on his cheek, which also, by causing a twitching of the jaw, rendered his articulation indistinct.

'To my great regret, I am obliged to decline your invitation, my dear friend,' said Talma. 'This is my last night here, and I must set off for Paris to-morrow.'

'Set off to-morrow!'

'Positively. Michelet and Dumas have the whole management on their shoulders, and are pressing my return; and Lemercier is only waiting for me to read to us a sort of Richard the Third.'

'Nevertheless, you dine with me to-morrow. One day longer will not matter to them, and is a great matter to me. I suspect Lemercier's Richard the Third is cold enough to keep a little longer. I am to have my friend Girodet with me; so dine with us you must. It will make me grow young again, man, and bring back the happy meetings at Moliker's, near the gate of the Louvre.'

The illustrious exile accompanied this sentence with another of his grim smiles. The actor was deeply moved by it, for in that bitter smile he read how the artist pined for his country. 'I will stay with you, I will stay with you, dear David!' now eagerly cried Talma. 'For your sake, I will desert my post, and steal a holiday from my Paris friends; but it can only be on condition that you, too, will make a little sacrifice for me, and come this evening to see me in Leonidas.'

'Well, I don't care if I do,' answered the painter, whom the sight of one friend, and the expectation of seeing another, had made quite a different being from the David of the morning. 'Here goes for Leonidas; but, remember, I give you fair warning—I shall go to sleep. I have scarcely ever been in a theatre that I did not take a sound nap.'

'But when Talma plays, plaudits will keep you awake, M. David,' said the courtly M. Lesec; and this seasonable compliment obtained for him a smile, and an invitation for the next day, so flattering to his vanity that, even at the risk of compromising himself with the Prince of Orange, he unhesitatingly accepted.

That evening, between six and seven o'clock, the old French painter, a Baron of the Empire, entered the theatre in full dress, and with a new red ribbon in his button-hole; but, as if shrinking from notice, he took his seat at the back of the stage-box, reserved for him by his friend Talma, with M. Lesec by his side, prouder, more elated, more frizzled and befrilled, than if he had been appointed first-commissioner of finance. But notwithstanding all the care of the modest artist to preserve his incognito, it was soon whispered through the theatre that he was one of the audience; and it was not long before he was pointed out, when instantly the whole house stood up respectfully, and repeated cheers echoed from pit to vaulted roof. The prince himself was among the first to offer this tribute to the illustrious exile, who, confused, agitated, and scarcely able to restrain his tears, bowed to the audience rather awkwardly, as he whispered to M. Lesec: 'So, then, I am still remembered. I thought no one at Brussels cared whether I was dead or alive.'