NEVER FORGOTTEN.

PART THE SECOND.

CHAPTER I. THE NEW PLAY.

A LITTLE white retiring monument in the
Eastport churchyard, marked with a carved
violet and a simple girl's name, was beginning to
turn a little grey, after two years' exposure.
Over at Eastport soft rain was dropping gently
on it; but in Paris, at the same moment, a
hot Paris day was fading out, and French
Capua, where Youth is always at the prow, and
Pleasure sleepless at the helm, was getting ready
for the night. Little standing armies were
drawn up in rank and file at every theatre door;
and in the court-yard of the Grand Sybarite
Hotel, at the foot of the stone staircase, was
waiting a carriage of the establishment, to take
away guests to the opera or theatre.

The Sybarites had feasted some four hundred
strong, and were dropping away down the steps
two and three together, in a pleasant rout.
The Frenchmen, very warm and mellow, like
true voluptuaries, were lighting cigars and picking
teeth, or abstractedly feeling their purloined
sugar lumps in their pockets. The hotel was
lit up. Lights flashed from the Hundred and
One Bureaux. Indistinctly the stars were seen
through the great glass roof over the court.
There was a glimpse of Paradise at the bright
café to the left, where were wandering in the
sated diners to lounge on velvet. Bright clean
waiter youths lolled on the great stairs and
chattered; for work was done. Carriages plunging
and clattering in under the porch, were pulled up
with violence, and, flinging out a visitor, clashed
to their doors, and were gone again. There was
lull in the life of the huge hotel; for it had been
rather spent with the grand operation just passed
through, and there was a reaction. The Capuans
were languid.

The carriage of the establishment had been
waiting more than half an hour, when a shining
boy of a waiter called from the top of the steps
to the coachman to be on the alert, for his
company were coming down. Presently there did
come down a tall Englishman in evening
uniform, with an auburn-haired girl in a white cloak
upon his arm—wreath, fan, and snowy gloves. He
was clean, fresh, and transparent of skin, as only
Englishmen are. Two young gay waiters leaning
on the balustrade smiled after them. A man in
green and gold, bursting from some concealed
hutch or warren, was holding the door open
magnificently, then shut it to firmly as the couple
entered, and the direction was given.

Boy-waiter the first looked at his neighbour
inquiringly. Boy-waiter the second answered
the look in speech.

"Capitaine Anglais."

"La petite? Tenez—ça va! Numero 60."

Deft handmaids had long since investigated
minutely the crested ivory brushes in Numero 60,
and studied Madame's dresses, and seen on a
roomy portmanteau large white initials, "C. F.,"
and read with lame pronunciation a little card,
"Captain Fermor."

Not alone the two English in the neat coupé,
but all Paris, was converging to the one theatre.
They were lighting up Aladdin's Wonderful
Lamps all along the magic Boulevards. Crowds of
the faithful sitting at tiny marble tables, sipping
from the cloudy caraffes, saw through the trees
the train of dark coaches trundling by with a
flare to the one spot.

The English girl-wife, sitting in the carriage
of the Sybarite establishment, burst out with all
a child's raptures as she saw this gay panorama
pass by. She broke out with little soft spasms
of rapture. "How beautiful! How lovely! O,
look! Do look!" while the English captain,
calm as one who had seen all the known shows
of the world, does look out—as a concession to
this pleasant popular humour, and says that they
do these things very well on the whole.

He was pleased that she was pleased: that is, he
was calmly complacent. And, as they rolled
along, he did the showman as if he were good
naturedly talking in his own grounds. There
will not be so enraptured an audience at any of
the theatres open to-night as his companion. It
was her first night in Paris.

They got to their theatre. "Some fellow has
a new play to-night," said Captain Fermor,
carelessly, as he helped her out and looked round
with disgust at some one who jostled him. "They
do make such a fuss about these things in this
country."

The "fellow" who had written the play was a
very famous young author, who, in his round of
daily life, had played many characters, and shown