Behind the Bronze Door by William Le Queux

Paris has greatly changed since the war. The _bonhomie_ of the boulevards, so marked a feature before the year 1914, has subsided a good deal. The inhabitants, considered collectively, are more serious.

Hopford and Johnson's friend, Idris Llanvar, with whom Hopford was now staying, were discussing these and other matters one morning in Paris, when they were joined by Hopford's friend who worked for _Le Matin_. Tall, slim, good-looking, and with the charming manner peculiar to descendants of the old French noblesse, he raised his hat as he approached, then apologized in excellent English for his unpunctuality.