“Will monsieur have the goodness to move an inch to one side?”

“How! At what are you gazing now? You are not recognizing an acquaintance amongst that group of jeunes gens?”

“I think so—yes, I see there a person I know.”

In fact, I had caught a glimpse of a head too pretty to belong to any other than the redoubted Colonel de Hamal. What a very finished, highly polished little pate it was! What a figure, so trim and natty! What womanish feet and hands! How daintily he held a glass to one of his optics; with what admiration he gazed upon the Cleopatra; and then how engagingly he tittered and whispered a friend at his elbow! O the man of sense! O the refined gentleman of superior taste and tact! I observed him for about ten minutes, and perceived that he was exceedingly taken with this dusk and portly Venus of the Nile. So much was I interested in his bearing, so absorbed in divining his character by his looks and movements, I temporarily forgot M. Paul. In the interim a group came between that gentleman and me; or possibly his scruples might have received another and worse shock from my present abstraction, causing him to withdraw voluntarily. At any rate, when I again looked round, he was gone.

My eye, pursuant of the search, met not him, but another and dissimilar figure, well seen amidst the crowd, for the height as well as the port lent each its distinction. This way came Dr. John, in visage, in shape, in hue, as unlike the dark, acerb, and caustic little professor as the fruit of the Hesperides might be unlike the sloe in the wild thicket, as the high-couraged but tractable Arabian is unlike the rude and stubborn “sheltie.” He was looking for me, but had not yet explored the corner where the schoolmaster had just put me. I remained quiet; yet another minute I would watch.

He approached De Hamal; he paused near him. I thought he had a pleasure in looking over his head. Dr. Bretton too gazed on the Cleopatra. I doubt if it were to his taste. He did not simper like the little count; his mouth looked fastidious, his eye cool; without demonstration he stepped aside, leaving room for others to approach. I saw now that he was waiting, and, rising, I joined him.

We took one turn round the gallery; with Graham it was very pleasant to take such a turn. I always liked dearly to hear what he had to say about either pictures or books; because, without pretending to be a connoisseur, he always spoke his thought, and that was sure to be fresh. Very often it was also just and pithy. It was pleasant also to tell him some things he did not know—he listened so kindly, so teachably, unformalized by scruples lest so to bend his bright handsome head to gather a woman’s rather obscure and stammering explanation should imperil the dignity of his manhood. And when he communicated information in return, it was with a lucid intelligence that left all his words clear graven on the memory; no explanation of his giving, no fact of his narrating, did I ever forget.

As we left the gallery, I asked him what he thought of the Cleopatra (after making him laugh by telling him how Professor Emanuel had sent me to the right-about, and taking him to see the sweet series of pictures recommended to my attention).

“Pooh!” said he; “my mother is a better-looking woman. I heard some French fops yonder designating her as ‘le type du voluptueux;’ if so, I can only say, ‘Le voluptueux’ is little to my liking. Compare that mulatto with Ginevra!”