each other.  But they went off vexed, thinking that some practical joke had been played upon them, when they suddenly saw the quartette, all good friends again, go into raptures over a wet-nurse, dressed in light colours, with long cherry-tinted ribbons streaming from her cap.  There, now!  That was something like—­what a tint, what a bright note it set amid the surroundings!  Delighted, blinking their eyes, they followed the nurse under the trees, and then suddenly seemed roused and astonished to find they had already come so far.  The Esplanade, open on all sides, save on the south, where rose the distant pile of the Hotel des Invalides, delighted them—­it was so vast, so quiet; they there had plenty of room for their gestures; and they recovered breath there, although they were always declaring that Paris was far too small for them, and lacked sufficient air to inflate their ambitious lungs.

‘Are you going anywhere particular?’ asked Sandoz of Mahoudeau and Jory.

‘No,’ answered the latter, ’we are going with you.  Where are you going?’

Claude, gazing carelessly about him, muttered:  ’I don’t know.  That way, if you like.’

They turned on to the Quai d’Orsay, and went as far as the Pont de la Concorde.  In front of the Corps Legislatif the painter remarked, with an air of disgust:  ‘What a hideous pile!’

’Jules Favre made a fine speech the other day.  How he did rile Rouher,’ said Jory.

However, the others left him no time to proceed, the disputes began afresh.  ’Who was Jules Favre?  Who was Rouher?  Did they exist?  A parcel of idiots whom no one would remember ten years after their death.’  The young men had now begun to cross the bridge, and they shrugged their shoulders with compassion.  Then, on reaching the Place de la Concorde, they stopped short and relapsed into silence.

‘Well,’ opined Claude at last, ‘this isn’t bad, by any means.’

It was four o’clock, and the day was waning amidst a glorious powdery shimmer.  To the right and left, towards the Madeleine and towards the Corps Legislatif, lines of buildings stretched away, showing against the sky, while in the Tuileries Gardens rose gradients of lofty rounded chestnut trees.  And between the verdant borders of the pleasure walks, the avenue of the Champs Elysees sloped upward as far as the eye could reach, topped by the colossal Arc de Triomphe, agape in front of the infinite.  A double current, a twofold stream rolled along—­horses showing like living eddies, vehicles like retreating waves, which the reflections of a panel or the sudden sparkle of the glass of a carriage lamp seemed to tip with white foam.  Lower down, the square—­with its vast footways, its roads as broad as lakes—­was filled with a constant ebb and flow, crossed in every direction by whirling wheels, and peopled with black specks of men, while the two fountains plashed and streamed, exhaling delicious coolness amid all the ardent life.