 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! Oh, the man of sense! Oh, 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
