Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/60

50 acquaintance with her one of those "important" facts of which he had spoken to Charles Waterlow. It was in the case of such an accident as this that he felt the value of his Parisian education—his modern sense.

It was therefore not directly the prospect of the circus that induced him to accept Mr. Dosson's invitation; nor was it even the charm exerted by the girl's appearing, in the few words she uttered, to appeal to him for herself. It was his feeling that on the edge of the glittering ring her type would form his entertainment and that if he knew it was rare she herself did not. He liked to be conscious, but he liked others not to be. It seemed to him at this moment, after he had told Mr. Dosson he should be delighted to spend the evening with them, that he was indeed trying hard to discover how it would feel to be an American; he had jumped on the ship, he was pitching away to the west. He had led his sister, Mme. de Brécourt, to expect that he would dine with her (she was having a little party), and if she could see the people to whom, without a scruple, with a quick sense of refreshment and freedom, he now sacrificed her! He knew who was coming to his sister's, in the Place Beauvau: Mme. d' Outreville and M. de Grospré, old M. Courageau, Mme. de Brives, Lord and Lady Trantum, Mlle. de Saintonge; but he was fascinated by the idea of the contrast between what he