" They were on there
rebound, once more in Paris--often as Pemberton had seen them depressed
he had never seen them crushed--and communication was therefore rapid. He
wrote to the boy to ascertain the state of his health, but awaited the
answer in vain. He accordingly, after three days, took an abrupt leave
of the opulent youth and, crossing the Channel, alighted at the small
hotel, in the quarter of the Champs Elysees, of which Mrs. Moreen had
given him the address. A deep if dumb dissatisfaction with this lady and
her companions bore him company: they couldn't be vulgarly honest, but
they could live at hotels, in velvety entresols, amid a smell of burnt
pastilles, surrounded by the most expensive city in Europe. When he had
left them in Venice it was with an irrepressible suspicion that something
was going to happen; but the only thing that could have taken place was
again their masterly retreat. "How is he? where is he?" he asked of Mrs.
Moreen; but before she could speak these questions were answered by the
pressure round hid neck of a pair of arms, in shrunken sleeves, which
still were perfectly capable of an effusive young foreign squeeze.
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