He inwardly recalled the types with which his stage was embellished; the fellow puppets of that gilded and arrogant and idle world, the curled and perfumed princes, the waxed and watching _boulevardiers_ side by side with virginal and unconscious American girls, pallid and impoverished grand dukes in the wake of painted but wary Parisians, stiff-mustached and mysterious Austrian counts lowering at doughty and indignant Englishwomen; bejeweled beys and pashas brushing elbows with unperturbed New England school-teachers astray from Cook's; monocled thieves and gamblers and princelings, jaded tourists and skulking parasites--and always the disillusioned and waiting women.
"That play got on your nerves, didn't it ?" suddenly asked the lazy, half-careless voice at his side.

Durkin and the young Chicagoan were in the musky-smelling Promenade by this time, and up past the stands at the sea-front the breath of the Mediterranean blew in their faces, fresh, salty, virile.
"This whole place gets on my nerves!" said Durkin testily.

Yes, he told himself, he was sick of it, sick of the monotony, of the idleness, of the sullen malevolence of it all.

It was gay only to the eyes; and to him it would never seem gay again.
"Oh, that comes of not speaking the language, you know!" maintained the other stoutly, and, at the same time, comprehensively.
He was still very young, Durkin remembered.

He had toyed with art for two winters in Paris, so scene by scene he had been able to translate the little drama that had appeared so farcical and Frenchy to his older countryman in exile.
Durkin's lip curled a little.
"No--it comes of knowing _life_!" he answered, with a touch of impatience.