M. Le Chapelier was above-stairs with friends. The waiter desired
to serve the gentleman, but hesitated to break in upon the assembly
in which M. le Depute found himself.
Andre-Louis gave him a piece of silver to encourage him to make the
attempt. Then he sat down at a marble-topped table by the window
looking out over the wide tree-encircled square. There, in that
common-room of the caf?, deserted at this hour of mid-afternoon, the
great man came to him. Less than a year ago he had yielded precedence
to Andre-Louis in a matter of delicate leadership; to-day he stood
on the heights, one of the great leaders of the Nation in travail,
and Andre-Louis was deep down in the shadows of the general mass.
The thought was in the minds of both as they scanned each other,
each noting in the other the marked change that a few months had
wrought. In Le Chapelier, Andre-Louis observed certain heightened
refinements of dress that went with certain subtler refinements of
countenance. He was thinner than of old, his face was pale and
there was a weariness in the eyes that considered his visitor
through a gold-rimmed spy-glass.
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