He recalled his arrival in Paris, his humiliations, his privations.

Alas! he was not the one who had known privation.

One had but to look at his full, rotund face beside the thin, drawn faces of the two women.

But the actor did not look so closely.
"Oh!" he said, continuing to intoxicate himself with declamatory phrases, "oh! to have struggled so long.

For ten years, fifteen years, have I struggled on, supported by these devoted creatures, fed by them." "Papa, papa, hush," cried Desiree, clasping her hands.
"Yes, fed by them, I say--and I do not blush for it.