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 8ERTRAND SMITHS 
 *<-RES Of- BOOKS 
 140 PACIFIC AVENUE 
 LONG BEACH CALIF.
 
 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS
 
 THE STREET OF THE 
 TWO FRIENDS w. 
 
 BY 
 
 F. BERKELEY SMITH 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "A VILLAGE OF VAGABONDS," "THE REAL LATIN QUARTER," 
 
 "THE LADY OF BIG SHANTY," "PARISIANS OUT-OF-DOORS," 
 
 "IN LONDON TOWN," ETC., ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR 
 
 GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
 
 DOUBLED AY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 1912
 
 Copyright, 1911, by 
 JOHN ADAMS THAYER CORPORATION 
 
 Copyright, 1911, 1912, by 
 
 AINSLEE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 Copyright, 1912, by 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved, including thai of 
 
 translation into foreign languages, 
 
 including the Scandinavian.
 
 URL 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 POSSIBLY no woman is so universally mis- 
 understood and misjudged by the Anglo- 
 Saxon race as the Latin woman. To the 
 English-speaking peoples she is the incarnation 
 of all she ought not to be. To them the word 
 "Parisienne" is synonomous with "Advent- 
 uress," frou-frous, and champagne. 
 
 These stories are out of my own experiences 
 during the twenty years I have lived in Paris. 
 Ten of these were during my student days in 
 the Latin Quarter, the remainder were in 
 Montmartre and beyond. 
 
 In the tales which follow I have eliminated 
 fiction and told the truth. It is my purpose in 
 this volume to pay tribute to a race among 
 whom I have lived, and the sincerity of whose 
 
 hearts is a joy to remember. 
 
 F. B. S. 
 
 8 Rue des Deux Amis, 
 Paris, May, 1912.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prologue 3 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. The Enthusiast 19 
 
 II. The Savage 51 
 
 III. Villa by the Sea 81 
 
 IV. By the Grace of Allah .... 125 
 V. The Thoroughbred 159 
 
 VI. Natka 195 
 
 VII. "Gaby" 231 
 
 VIII. Undine 261 
 
 IX. Therese 295 
 
 X. Straight-Rye Jones 325 
 
 XI. "The Arrangement of Monsieur de 
 
 Courcelles" ....... 349 
 
 XII. "The Refugees" 379
 
 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 THE STUDIO IN THE STREET OF THE TWO 
 FRIENDS 
 
 T SHALL call this street the "Rue des Deux 
 * Amis " - the Street of the Two Friends - 
 since the name suggests the life of this crooked 
 byway halfway up Montmartre better than its 
 own. 
 
 Its real name is the Rue Frangois Villemorin, 
 which suggests nothing but a crabbed old sculp- 
 tor, who lived close to a century ago in the third 
 house from the corner, a house distinguished 
 from the others by an exquisitely carved fagade
 
 4 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 and from behind whose habitually closed blinds 
 Villemorin died a hermit, which is a bad thing 
 for any one to be while alive. 
 
 The little street is now inhabited by idle 
 dreamers to whom Paris seems couleur de rose 
 as long as they have enough for to-morrow's 
 food and a little left to dream on. 
 
 Poor Pierrot! Only last night his anxious 
 face shone pale in the soft moonlight flooding 
 the floor of his garret, while he turned his 
 pockets inside out in quest of a little silver to 
 still the heart of his landlord. 
 
 Poor Pierrot ! That excellent fellow might as 
 well have counted upon finding a diamond 
 glittering on the bare floor beneath his narrow 
 cot. His beloved Columbine, the only jewel 
 in the garret, was in tears. Morning dawned, 
 to find her eyes still red with weeping, then 
 Fortune passed to slip three gold louis beneath 
 their pillow. The sun rose high to warm their 
 hearts again a merry Columbine. Pierrot 
 sings gayly to the swallows screaming past their 
 gabled window among the roofs.
 
 THE STUDIO IN THE STREET 5 
 
 Kind old Paris! What a good mother she 
 is: she who does not fail her children even in 
 their darkest hour, she who knows so well that 
 kisses are not nourishing. Ah! how many 
 Pierrots and Columbines there are in the Rue 
 des Deux Amis. 
 
 Let me be truthful in describing an ancient 
 house flanking the corner of the Rue des Deux 
 Amis, since I live there, and this modest abode 
 of mine, tucked beneath the roofs like the nest 
 of Pierrot and Columbine, has much in concern 
 with those whom Chance has led across my 
 threshold and often into my heart. 
 
 Let me be truthful, I say, for the plain truth 
 needs no further seasoning of the imagination 
 from even so enthusiastic a dreamer as myself. 
 And since one's daily adventures lead one, par- 
 bleu ! into enough that could pass for fiction, and 
 is so seldom chronicled in truth. 
 
 Is there not enough romance and drama 
 lurking at one's elbows in the passing throng? 
 Climb almost any flight of stairs and knock at 
 almost any door if you would know more. Are
 
 6 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 there not skeletons in closets locked even to 
 friends? and love affairs in garrets that need 
 not the gilded setting of the novelist to enhance 
 their glamour or intensify their sincerity? 
 
 Love has little to do with environment the 
 flame burns steadily in any atmosphere. For- 
 tune is generous in her slices of life she cuts 
 the cake fairly and gives full measure with an 
 open palm but to my studio beneath the roofs. 
 
 I cannot help feeling a certain reverence and 
 respect for the house itself it has seen so 
 much and passed bravely through so many 
 vicissitudes. 
 
 It began by housing a prince, sheltered an 
 erring countess, became the private hotel of a 
 grande cocotte, once a king's favourite, offered 
 in turn a secret meeting place to a revolutionary 
 committee, and before the dawn of the next 
 day found itself back of a barricade breasting a 
 hell of frenzy, and up to its roof in smoke, 
 through which roared a merciless fire of musket 
 balls and grapeshot. Men and women died 
 where they fell, some on the winding stairs, others
 
 THE STUDIO IN THE STREET 7 
 
 on the floors back of gaping windows choked 
 with barriers of furniture and bedding, others 
 shrieked out their lives in closets back of splin- 
 tered doors. A red-haired woman wearing a 
 three-cornered hat with a cockade dropped her 
 musket, slipped slowly over the sill of a window 
 on the third floor, and fell like a sack on the 
 barricade beneath shot through the head. 
 Blood soaked through the floors and trickled 
 from the riddled ceilings. The smoke blown 
 back from the windows half smothered a scene 
 indescribable. It is difficult to aim straight 
 with wet hands. For three days and nights 
 the house held this carnage in its entrails, its 
 thick walls taking the brunt of the onslaught 
 without until there was not a space as large as 
 a man's head that did not show a wound. Then 
 a young fellow with insane eyes, his gaunt face 
 black with powder grease, limped to the summit 
 of the barricade, waving a tattered shirt at the 
 end of a pike. 
 
 The barricade had surrendered! That night 
 the house slept in darkness with its dead. 
 
 The Lieutenant Commander de Fontaine-
 
 8 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 Senac, passing a little before midnight with his 
 aide, noticed in the dark a dull glow of light 
 among the debris of the barricade. It was a 
 sergeant lighting his pipe with an old-fashioned 
 phosphor match from a bottle. De Fontaine- 
 Senac raised his head with a jerk and glanced 
 up at the house. "They are snuffed out," he 
 remarked to his aide, and strode on down the 
 silent street. 
 
 To-day there is not a visible trace of the night- 
 mare through which the brave old house passed. 
 Like many other veterans, it is now at peace in 
 its best clothes, its scars long ago hidden under 
 plaster and paint. 
 
 My concierge Madame Dupuy mops 
 clean the cobbled pavement of its generous 
 entrance daily, which is wide enough for a car- 
 riage to enter, and at whose farther end, close 
 to Madame Dupuy's loge, is a glass door which 
 you may neither open nor shut without its 
 jangling a horrid little bell, the door closing 
 stiffly with a wheeze of pain, as if in protest at 
 being disturbed.
 
 THE STUDIO IN THE STREET 9 
 
 Now the builder who lives on the first floor 
 an apoplectic man with a bull neck in two puffs 
 and a crease opens the door savagely with a 
 wrench. That good soul, Madame Dupuy, 
 almost invariably opens it with a smile, and I 
 have known a certain mademoiselle to open it 
 with a small gloved hand, so carefully and with 
 so much tactful haste that I have often wondered 
 as I gazed down from the top floor between the 
 bannisters and beheld the small gloved hand 
 ascending, how the little bell could have been 
 brutal and indiscreet enough to have announced 
 her arrival. 
 
 What an aggravating watchdog the little bell 
 is. Yet without it Madame Dupuy would not 
 sleep a wink she who believes every detail of 
 every crime she reads in her daily paper, and 
 exclaims to herself at the end of each para- 
 graph as she readjusts her spectacles and her 
 neat white cap: 
 
 "Ah! Quelle horreurt" 
 
 On the first floor, I have said, lives the 
 builder; the stairs from thence circle up past 
 the doors of my neighbours. Moreover, this
 
 10 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 ancient winding flight is waxed, carpeted down 
 the middle, and kept spotlessly clean. Madame 
 Dupuy sees to that the stairs are her pride. 
 Dogs have to be carried up them in arms, all 
 except the fox terrier on the second floor, whose 
 tail grows out of an ink spot and who is owned 
 by a heavy blonde in a pink wrapper, who has 
 long since retired from romance. 
 
 You can hear the shivery tinkle of the 
 fox terrier's bell when she opens her door. 
 He is so nervous that he barely touches any- 
 thing. 
 
 On the third floor ah ! but on the third 
 floor the door is always closed. Twice I have 
 seen an egg left on its threshold; now and then 
 a narrow loaf of bread keeping a bottle of milk 
 company on the polished brass knob. Once I 
 saw a man leave and again a woman enter; she 
 was very pale and in deep mourning. 
 
 The third floor is a mystery. 
 
 On the fourth floor the carpet ceases, and 
 you pass the plain door of a trim little modiste, 
 who has a habit of forgetting and leaving the 
 little door ajar, so that I am forced at times to
 
 THE STUDIO IN THE STREET 11 
 
 catch a glimpse of her small, active hands pin- 
 ning a lining to a headless lady with a faultless 
 figure, or bidding her sweetheart au revoir for 
 the day. 
 
 A short flight now leads to the top floor, paved 
 with red tiles, snug under the zinc roof with its 
 groups of hooded chimney pipes. The brown 
 door to the right is my own. 
 
 It is very modest, this top floor. The rest 
 of the house seems to have abandoned it, leaving 
 it like a poor relation to shift for itself, deprived 
 of stair carpet and gas, the end of its dark cor- 
 ridor harbouring a brass spigot in a niche, from 
 which I draw water in an earthen jug. My door 
 at the head of the stairs opens into a small low- 
 ceiled room, which serves as my studio, and 
 whose two windows locked by iron clasps look 
 down on the gray walls of a weather-stained 
 court at the bottom of which on fair days are 
 ranged like a row of convalescents, profiting 
 of its afternoon sun, the pet plants of Madame 
 Dupuy. 
 
 Off my studio across a narrow corridor is a 
 still smaller bedroom, whose ceiling bends its
 
 1* THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 back in obedience to the slope of the roof, and 
 from whose gabled window one can gaze down 
 on the lazy life of the Rue des Deux Amis. 
 
 A yard and a hah* farther, and the little cor- 
 ridor ends at the door of a box of a kitchen 
 provided with a hooded charcoal range, and a 
 skylight big enough to stick one's head out of 
 in sunny weather, and as tight as the lid of a 
 snuff box in storms. 
 
 This garret of mine beneath the roofs possesses 
 a quiet charm, a personality wholly its own, an 
 intimateness, for are not its motley furnishings 
 old friends in themselves? beginning if you will 
 with the faded gold frame of the mirror over 
 my studio fireplace, whose glass is as dull as 
 the eye of a dead fish, and continuing along the 
 walls hung with remnants of damask and bro- 
 cade, their most threadbare spots hidden under 
 sketches from fellow painters or shadowed by 
 shelves sagging with books, cracked pots, and 
 blue and apple-green jars repeating the colour 
 now and then of some worn rug on the cracked 
 tile floor, whose darkest spots may be traced 
 to a squashed tube of charcoal gray. There
 
 THE STUDIO IN THE STREET 13 
 
 are quaint cupboards, too, let into the thick 
 walls and into which are shovelled, when in haste 
 to be neat, trash that the kitchen refuses to 
 conceal, since its own nooks and corners are 
 full to overflowing. Some day I am going to 
 be brave and throw away much with a relentless 
 hand; and yet when I have tried, I have failed 
 dismally. No! No! One cannot throw away 
 one's old friends as easily as that, not even the 
 chairs I rescued from the second-hand dealer 
 when on their last legs. 
 
 As for the green bell rope with its dusty tassel 
 outside my door, I have long since cut it down. 
 It was more nerve-racking in its jangle than its 
 mate downstairs; besides, what is more fascinat- 
 ing than the unexpected rap gentle raps, 
 joyous raps, some timid, some insistent, some 
 dear to the heart? One never knows whose 
 dainty foot will reach the landing of the 
 sixth floor before my garret door. Unexpected 
 raps how many souvenirs they recall how 
 many romances and adventures have they begun 
 within my garret beneath the roofs? Hark! 
 A step on the stairs!
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 THE ENTHUSIAST
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 THE ENTHUSIAST 
 
 f HAVE seen Briston seasick, but never in love. 
 So, when he climbed the spiral stairs and 
 rapped at the modest brown door of my garret 
 studio, beneath the roofs in the Rue des Deux 
 Amis, was let in, refused a cigarette I tossed 
 him from my easel, and announced he had 
 invited a certain Brazilian lady he had met on 
 the steamer to luncheon at the Cafe de la Paix. 
 Marie, my model, who was buttoning her boots, 
 and who understands a little English, burst into 
 a fit of giggles. 
 
 17
 
 18 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 Describe Briston? Let me tell you it is not 
 easy, since the description must be neat and 
 precise like Briston. 
 
 He is a tall, thin young Englishman, with 
 about as much flesh on his ribs as a fox terrier; 
 a fellow with a set purpose in his Parisian life, 
 in whose tenacious pursuit the so-called weaker 
 instincts common to man have been stifled. 
 
 Briston is a machine, as finely adjusted as the 
 high-power focus on his best binocular micro- 
 scope, through which his gray, beadlike eyes, set 
 close to the bridge of his aristocratic nose, have 
 been for five years steadily engaged in research. 
 
 Briston is a fact as dry as the cross section 
 of the spinal column of a mole, sliced on a 
 paraffined cork to a thousandth of an inch, and 
 hermetically sealed from vulgar contact with the 
 outer world in a drop of refined balsam. 
 
 The Cafe de la Paix! 
 
 I looked at Briston in amazement, for we were 
 both as poor as rats - - almost as poor as 
 Marie. 
 
 It was evident from the gloomy hesitancy in 
 his thin voice that he already regretted his extrav-
 
 THE ENTHUSIAST 19 
 
 agant invitation half through timidity, partly 
 because he feared the expense. 
 
 Again Marie understood. 
 
 Removing two hairpins from her saucy mouth, 
 she looked up at the victim naively, an expres- 
 sion that changed to a good-hearted smile of pity. 
 
 "Listen, my little one," she said softly. 
 
 Briston stiffened at the familiarity. 
 
 "Mais, voyons, mon petit!" continued Marie. 
 "The Cafe de la Paix! You are crazy you 
 will go hungry, my poor friend, for the rest of 
 the month. It is true what I tell you. Ah, 
 no! The grand restaurants are not for you. 
 They are for the imbeciles with plenty of louis, 
 the princes, the 'big vegetables'; those rich old 
 'pears' as bald as a boiled egg." 
 
 She paused, and laid aside her button-hook 
 thoughtfully on the worn divan. 
 
 "Ah, zut alors!" she exclaimed. "It is not 
 as difficult as all that. If your Brazilienne is a 
 good comrade, she will be content with enfin ! 
 a little restaurant like the rest of us. Quoi? 
 But if she plays the princesse, beware, my old 
 one; you will not have a sou left."
 
 20 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 She let down her soft, dark hair about her firm, 
 young shoulders, and started a braid. 
 
 "Listen!" she again resumed. ;< There is 
 the Mouton d'Or. One eats well there for three 
 francs. It is not too dear that, hein?" 
 
 Briston seemed relieved, though he reddened 
 with embarrassment under her frankness. 
 
 "Besides," she added, "I know the patron - 
 you will not be robbed. I will tell him you are 
 coming with your madame." 
 
 "Mademoiselle," corrected Briston, who was 
 always accurate. 
 
 "Madame," insisted Marie. 
 
 "But she is not married," returned Briston 
 with conviction. 
 
 "It is not polite," explained Marie. "A lady 
 should always be called 'madame' whether she 
 is married or not." 
 
 She rose and turned to the dusty mirror over 
 the mantel, whose dull glass served to guide her 
 small hands in busily coiling and patting into 
 place her three braids. 
 
 How neatly she does it, this simple coiffure 
 of hers, that begins at the nape of her shapely
 
 THE ENTHUSIAST 21 
 
 little neck, touches in passing the tips of her 
 small, pink ears, and ends in two twists and a 
 coil on the top of her pretty head. Another 
 hairpin sank in place, and she went to the 
 kitchen, where the glass was clearer, to dress. 
 
 With Marie's final word of advice, my studio 
 beneath the roofs had become silent. 
 
 At length Briston stirred himself uneasily, 
 and, with an anxious look and some hesitation, 
 finally blurted out: 
 
 "I wish you'd come along, old chap er 
 you see, I don't know her very well, and with 
 my bad French " 
 
 "Dieu! He is funny!" I over heardMarie 
 sigh from the kitchen. 
 
 "Join you two at luncheon not much! 
 Delighted to meet your Brazilian at any other 
 time," I declared; "but I am not as indiscreet 
 as all that." 
 
 He looked at me gravely, like a young pro- 
 fessor weighing a pupil's answer. 
 
 "No, no!" I protested. "Go and have your 
 little luncheon, you two, and be glad if the sun 
 shines and you have enough in your pocket for
 
 22 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 an excellent dish and a kind bottle of wine. It 
 will do you good that 'rinses the eyes,' as 
 the French say. I've no doubt madame 
 is charming; a Brazilian, eh? And beautiful?" 
 
 "Um er yes," he declared thoughtfully, 
 twirling his pale, transparent fingers in a sun- 
 beam. "I dare say you would call her beauti- 
 ful. 'Beautiful' is not exactly the word. She 
 possesses, however, a certain personal attrac- 
 tion; fairly tall, dark hair, and all that sort of 
 thing." 
 
 "Speaks English?" 
 
 "Brokenly, with a limited vocabulary," con- 
 fessed Briston. 
 
 " Pretty teeth ? Gracious ? " 
 
 "Er svelte, with excellent teeth." 
 
 " Briston, you're a coward ! " I laughed. " For- 
 give me, but you are. How in the devil did this 
 fatal invitation occur?" 
 
 "Well, you see, old chap, I was quite ill on 
 board. We did have a wretched voyage all the 
 way over, rather! And she was kind to me; 
 loaned me books, and salts, and all that sort of 
 thing. Do you see?"
 
 THE ENTHUSIAST 23 
 
 "Oh, la, la!" sighed Marie. 
 
 "Say you'll come!" he insisted. 
 
 "I'll come," I promised, no longer able to re- 
 sist the prospect of meeting a beautiful Brazilian. 
 
 "Good!" he exclaimed, with nervous satis- 
 faction, rubbing together the palms of his thin 
 hands. 
 
 "What day? "I asked. 
 
 "Thursday, at half after twelve. We are to 
 meet on the cafe terrace." 
 
 "Ah, then you will not bring madame with 
 
 you." 
 
 Briston reddened slightly. "She would not 
 give me her address," he confessed. "She 
 rather insisted on our meeting on the terrace." 
 
 I glanced up at Marie, who was now button- 
 ing her gloves beside my easel, and saw a faint 
 smile lurking around the corners of her mouth 
 that spelled "adventuress." Briston saw it, 
 too, but he did not understand. 
 
 Marie put out her hand to him, and he rose 
 and shook it formally. 
 
 "Good luck, mon prince!" she said, picking 
 up her portemonnaie.
 
 24 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "Until to-morrow, my child," said I, as she 
 laid a friendly hand in passing on my shoulder, 
 and a moment later closed my studio door be- 
 hind her. 
 
 As I listened to the patter of her trim feet die 
 away down the stairs, I saw a gleam of intense 
 relief enter Briston's eyes. 
 
 The whole world, sooner or later, passes be- 
 fore the Cafe de la Paix. In this slow current 
 of drifting humanity, made up of the flotsam 
 and jetsam of the universe, there is rarely a 
 type that is not familiar. 
 
 Past the three rows of tables skirting the 
 sidewalk of the boulevard, the innocent touch 
 elbows with the vicious; the long with the short. 
 Beauty is rare; but the Beast is omnipresent 
 from morning until the following gray dawn. 
 It is a human current of idleness that moves in a 
 jargon of all languages. Rich and poor. Sav- 
 age and savant. Spendthrift and miser. The 
 woman with her transient prey. Rarely does 
 one glance twice at any of them. They pass 
 daily and nightly as they passed before the
 
 THE ENTHUSIAST 25 
 
 aperitifs of our great uncles, and will continue 
 to pass before future generations of boulevardiers. 
 
 I was explaining this to Briston as I looked at 
 my watch, with the firm conviction that mad- 
 ame, being a Brazilian, would be naturally 
 three quarters of an hour late, if she appeared 
 at all. It was not the first time I had waited, 
 with enthusiasm, on a cafe terrace for a Latin 
 lady. 
 
 Amazing! At precisely twelve-thirty to the 
 minute, Briston rose out of his chair and re- 
 moved his hat. At the same instant almost the 
 entire terrace turned to gaze at a woman ap- 
 proaching our table. Instinctively I drew a 
 quick breath. I was even a little late in rising, 
 and uncovering my head, so fascinated and ab- 
 sorbed was I in the sheer beauty of the woman. 
 
 If she was an adventuress, she was of the 
 type that could have turned a crowned head. 
 Never had I seen so subtly modelled, so ex- 
 quisite a figure. There was that classic fullness 
 about it which indicates a woman in her prime, 
 and not past it. She moved with such ease 
 that it was catlike, and yet with a certain gra
 
 26 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 cious dignity, gowned as she was, this sunny 
 spring morning, in a clinging frock of gray pon- 
 gee silk, with white polka dots, a parasol to 
 match, a becoming Gainsborough hat, with 
 white wings, and a pendant ruby at her throat. 
 She herself was like a jewel. 
 
 The brilliancy of her dark, Oriental eyes, with 
 their curved lashes, the rich sheen of her in- 
 tensely black hair, the pure oval of her face, her 
 skin like dusky ivory flushed w^ith health, and 
 now her frank smile as she drew near us, dis- 
 closing her faultless teeth ah, these were only 
 details; but I saw them at a glance. 
 
 "My deah boy," she laughed, as she held out 
 her gloved hand to the somewhat flustered Bris- 
 ton; "you see I not make zee late like every 
 bod', isn't it?" 
 
 " Mademoiselle er " Then checking 
 
 himself : " Er Madame da Varraguillo," stam- 
 mered Briston, by way of introduction. 
 
 "I feel, Madame, more like an indiscreet in- 
 truder than a guest," I declared, with my best 
 bow. 
 
 "Non! Non!" she exclaimed. "What for
 
 THE ENTHUSIAST 27 
 
 zee excuse? It is stupide, hein ? Always zoze 
 stupide tete-a-tetes; zoze stupide lovaires, isn't 
 it?" Laughing, she took her seat between us, 
 and started to remove her gloves. "We shall 
 be zee good comrades, is it not? All three?" 
 
 She turned to me roguishly, half closing her 
 brilliant eyes the eyes of an odalisque. 
 
 "He is so quiet, is it not? Zat good Monsieur 
 Briston?" she said mischievously, and she pat- 
 ted his thin hand in friendly apology. 
 
 "Of course it is far bettaire zee com- 
 rades," she added, with a weary little sigh. This 
 time she laid a half -gloved hand firmly over my 
 own a shapely hand ringed to the knuckles 
 with emeralds. It was characteristic of her 
 Brazilian blood. There was a touch of the 
 savage there in her love of jewels that I liked. 
 
 Ah! Never had I seen such eyes! They 
 smiled at you even when, for an instant, her 
 face was in repose. Eyes no less seductive and 
 captivating than her voice. The simplest 
 thing she said was rendered with a certain vi- 
 brant, tragic intensity; wide-eyed often, her 
 jewelled hands now clenched, now darting with
 
 28 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 the rapidity of two dragon-flies as she gestic- 
 ulated her words. Again, her voice would rise 
 to a staccato a volley of words then, each syl- 
 lable crisp and distinct as it was freed from its 
 barrier of pearls. 
 
 Strange to say, despite her vibrant intensity 
 of speech and gesture, no one at the next table 
 would have been disturbed, for she spoke di- 
 rectly to you, and no farther. Yet, again, her 
 voice would sink to one of dreamy gentleness. 
 She was seductive beyond words. 
 
 As Briston motioned to the waiter, she raised 
 her hands in protest. 
 
 "Non!" she said, with firmness. 
 
 "A little vermouth, then?" ventured Briston, 
 who had suggested a glass of porto. 
 
 "NonI Non! Non!" came in quick stac- 
 cato, her rich voice rising in intensity. "Not 
 zat!" And she measured the infinitesimal 
 quantity by the pink, manicured nail of her 
 little finger. 
 
 " Mon Dieu! Zoze silly aperitifs zey are 
 what you say horrible for zee intestines is 
 it not? Nevaire for me, even zee wine." Her
 
 THE ENTHUSIAST 29 
 
 voice sank to one of rich, dreamy cadence. "It 
 makes me what you say in English, ' quite 
 crazy.' ' 
 
 I believed her. Was she not wine herself of 
 the rarest vintage? She reminded me of spark- 
 ling Burgundy. 
 
 The table we had chosen for luncheon was 
 tucked away in a quiet corner of the restaurant. 
 As we entered, the smug-faced maitre d'hotel 
 chirped authoritatively to his assistants, placed 
 a footstool himself beneath her feet a delicate 
 attention, which left him florid and short of 
 breath, for he was overfat and waited with 
 pad and pencil for the order, while Briston ner- 
 vously cleared his throat and scanned the menu. 
 
 Marie's advice as to a modest restaurant now 
 came back to us, I believe, simultaneously. 
 Briston's agony was of short duration, for his 
 guest took the menu from him. 
 
 "We shall begin with zee hors d'ceuvres" she 
 said quietly. "Ah, zey are so good here. And 
 zen zey give you enough. Zoze many leetle 
 fishes in oil and zee rest I adore zem." 
 
 "And then?" ventured Briston.
 
 30 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "Ah, zen, my children, you shall have zee 
 good chop and zee pommes de terres." 
 
 She turned to the one in the black apron, with 
 the ever-ready corkscrew. 
 
 "Une bouteille de vin ordinaire" she com- 
 manded, " et un demi d'Eirian c'est tout" 
 
 "Bien, Madame," and the cellar man went his 
 way. 
 
 "But," declared Briston, "you will starve." 
 
 "No, my deah boy," she laughed softly. 
 "It is quite enough all zat." 
 
 From that moment I no longer doubted her 
 good heart or her quick understanding. Our 
 modest luncheon went merrily under the spell 
 of her fascination; and there we sat like obedient 
 children; I supremely happy; Briston ah, 
 well, Briston is a stone. And we laughed into 
 each other's eyes she and I while she told 
 us of the grandeur of Rio de Janeiro, and of its 
 lavish life, with all the vibrant intensity of her 
 nature. 
 
 "And when you shall see zoze mountains and 
 zee port, zen you shall cry zey are so beautiful," 
 she went on; "and zen I go to England. Is it
 
 THE ENTHUSIAST 31 
 
 not fearful a whole winter in London 
 like what you say 'an exile?' It was horrible!" 
 she exclaimed, with a shiver. "Zee fogs 
 zee fogs in zat big hotel in my boudoir in 
 my bedroom in my clothes. Oh, la, la ! Zen 
 I say to Senor Varraguillo zat if I stay longer 
 I die, and he vary jealous man, my husband." 
 
 Briston started. 
 
 "I must confess that is, I mean to say I 
 did not know you were married," he ventured 
 timidly. 
 
 ; ' Yes, my deah boy no, it is true I not tell 
 
 you now I have zee divorce since long time 
 
 - nevaire I go no more to London to freeze." 
 
 "Divorce is a good thing," I declared, with 
 the indiscretion of youth, "when two people can- 
 not get along." 
 
 "Of course," she returned, in a low voice. 
 
 :< Your ex-husband is in Paris?" I asked, re- 
 membering her alluding to his jealous character. 
 
 "No, my deah boy he is in zee colonies. 
 He make what you call zee zee bad affaires. 
 It is a pity to marry so young I marry at 
 fifteen."
 
 32 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 We reached the end of our luncheon only too 
 quick; Briston proposing a drive in the Bois, 
 and I tea at Armononville later. 
 
 " Nonl " she protested quickly. " Non truly." 
 There was a mischievous light in her eyes. 
 "Now, zen, you shall come wiz me." 
 
 "Where?" I exclaimed, my mind suddenly 
 alive; my imagination picturing the luxurious 
 interior of her private hotel, cigarettes in her 
 boudoir, with possibly a tame tiger dozing at 
 her feet. I had read of such boudoirs 
 
 Again her brilliant eyes half closed mischiev- 
 ously. 
 
 "You shall see," she said simply. ;< You shall 
 now come wiz me." 
 
 I no longer was conscious of the Cafe de la 
 Paix. Follow her! I would have followed her 
 to the ends of the earth. It seemed to me I was 
 living in a dream, intoxicated under the spell of 
 the most radiantly beautiful woman it had ever 
 been in my good fortune to meet. Evidently I 
 did not disguise the fact, for she paid but little 
 attention to Briston, and I felt aye, knew we 
 were already good friends. Such is the pre-
 
 THE ENTHUSIAST 33 
 
 sumption of youth. And so we rose from our 
 cozy table, and followed her as children follow 
 a trusty nurse, out into the warm sunlight, those 
 remaining on the terrace turning for a last look. 
 
 The prowling fiacres followed us, too; but she 
 stubbornly refused them. Had I been forty, I 
 should have scented danger; but at twenty, one 
 thinks of nothing. Besides, was she not Bris- 
 ton's friend? Had she not been kind to him at 
 sea, and loaned him "books, and salts, and all 
 that sort of thing." Adventuress? Nonsense! 
 She was adorable. 
 
 And so we turned into the Place de 1'Opera, 
 and thence down the Rue de la Paix, where 
 there are more jewels for sale than along any 
 other mercantile lane I know. It is a street up 
 and down which doddering old beaux are led to 
 slaughter a pearl necklace for a whispered 
 word a gown for a smile sables to appease 
 the petulant. 
 
 I noticed Briston was getting nervous. He 
 was never meant for this world. He still had, 
 I knew, a louis in his pocket, and I had eight 
 francs, so what cared we?
 
 34 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "It is farzaire on," she remarked, and farther 
 on it was. 
 
 Before a window she stopped abruptly. 
 
 "Are zey not pretty?" she declared naively. 
 "Is it not lovely to see such pretty lingerie?" 
 
 Indeed it was indeed they were. Where 
 else in the world are they so pretty? What 
 luxury in lace and ribbons! What a billowy 
 windowful of exquisite confections! What 
 spider webbery for the most fastidious spun to 
 order ! 
 
 We left the wax ladies about to retire, and 
 moved lazily down the street of fashion in the 
 balmy spring sunshine, halting again and again 
 before more lingerie; before glittering fortunes 
 in diamond sprays and coronets of brilliants 
 that are supposed to give to the rich an air of 
 royalty. 
 
 Briston regarded them dryly, with an as- 
 sumed grin of forced interest. One of those 
 peaked grins of interest that an old maid might 
 be expected to assume before the window of a 
 gunsmith. 
 
 She was so dear and amusing as she explained
 
 THE ENTHUSIAST 35 
 
 everything to me, drawing my attention here 
 and there by a friendly pressure of the arm, 
 touching upon some latest Parisian scandal con- 
 nected with a string of pearls, or some colossal 
 bill for froufrous contracted by a certain diva 
 who had once been the daughter of a concierge, 
 and whose extravagant account had been finally 
 settled by a duke. 
 
 "Is it not what you say amazing? Zoze 
 women zey are nevaire content zey love 
 nobod' and zey fool zee whole world. Of 
 course, my deah boy, zey are not what you call 
 zee good comrades, hein? You must nevaire 
 believe zem zoze stupide leetle women 
 nevaire," she counselled us. 
 
 And so we crossed at the Place Vendome, and 
 so on all the way back on the other side of the 
 gay street of jewels and froufrous. 
 
 Briston had now begun to glance nervously 
 at his watch, for, as he explained, he was due at 
 a lecture at the Sorbonne at four. 
 
 I had grown strangely silent, despite the caress 
 of her eyes and her radiant good humour. I 
 had just begun to realize that we were nearin&
 
 36 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 the end of our promenade, that in a little while 
 she would be gone, that I might never, never see 
 her again, for she, too, had hinted at an en- 
 gagement. No, I reasoned vaguely, she could 
 not be as cruel as that, she with her big, warm 
 heart perhaps she would invite me to tea. 
 But where? She had even refused Briston her 
 address. I began to take a violent dislike to 
 Briston, and yet I owed him much. 
 
 "I er I must be going, I fear," he 
 faltered weakly as we regained the corner 
 of the boulevard, "or I shall be late for my 
 lecture." 
 
 I turned to her pleadingly. 
 
 "Let me take you home," I blurted out. 
 
 She smiled, was silent for a moment, and then, 
 with a look of infinite tenderness, shook her 
 head slowly in the negative. 
 
 "No, my deah boy, zat is quite impossible. 
 You must not make zee sad has it not been 
 jolly, our leetle fete? It has been bettaire zan 
 zee Bois, hein?" She laughed, and added, 
 bending close to my ear: "And our leetle prom- 
 enade, so amusing to zee eyes, has cost notzing.
 
 THE ENTHUSIAST 87 
 
 Every bod' must make zee leetle economies in 
 life, is it not?" 
 
 She bade Briston good-bye with a gracious 
 word of thanks as he took his leave abruptly, 
 and rushed for his omnibus. It was a relief to 
 me when he was gone. 
 
 We were alone. That is, as much as any two 
 people can be alone on the corner of the crowded 
 boulevard. The passing tide of sordid humanity 
 did not interest me now. They were in the way. 
 
 "Please," I again pleaded, but she again 
 shook her head. 
 
 "I may not see you again, then?" 
 
 "Yes, my deah boy, when it is possible." 
 She hesitated; then, with a quick intake of her 
 breath, "Yes, you shall see me again when 
 it is possible." 
 
 I tore away the back of an envelope, and 
 started to write Ten Rue des Deux Amis, but 
 my hand trembled so I had to begin again. 
 
 To my joy, she took it, crumpled it into a 
 tiny wad, and, opening her gold purse, dropped 
 it within, and snapped shut the jewelled clasp. 
 
 I was content.
 
 38 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "Rue des Deux Amis," she smiled, "zen we 
 arc to be good friends." She gave me her hand. 
 "Au revoir!" she said, still smiling. " Non, you 
 shall not call a fiacre; my carriage is waiting be- 
 yond zee corner. Au revoir," she repeated. 
 "Do not follow me I not wish it." 
 
 She was gone in the throng. I stood for a 
 moment, unable to do more than gaze at the 
 vanishing tips of the white wings in her hat; 
 then they, too, disappeared in the crowd. Dis- 
 consolately I turned back down the Rue de la 
 Paix; but the memory of the windows was too 
 poignant, and I moved with no definite direction 
 in my mind down a side street. Something was 
 gripping painfully at my heart; a strange numb- 
 ness had seized me. It was long past midnight 
 when I climbed my studio stairs. I had been 
 walking continually, and had not dined, neither 
 could I remember the route I had taken to re- 
 gain my garret beneath the roofs. 
 
 A week passed. A whole, dreary week 
 of nervous, anxious waiting, during which 
 I bolted the brown door at the top of the
 
 THE ENTHUSIAST 39 
 
 stairs against every one save Marie, who came 
 to pose. 
 
 During the dreary week, I made a full con- 
 fession to Marie apropos of the luncheon. All 
 that good little model of mine could do was to 
 sympathize with me from the bottom of her 
 Montmartoise heart. Marie also gave me ad- 
 vice. She told me I should be philosophical, 
 and be content with the pleasant souvenir of 
 the day. 
 
 "(Test la vie! Quvi?" (Such is life.) 
 
 Good little soul, she did her best to cheer me 
 up, trying to convince me that all women were 
 alike, that in my enthusiasm I took them too 
 seriously, that it did not pay to be impressionable, 
 and that, after all, love was a question of illu- 
 sion. 
 
 I was glad often when her day's posing was 
 done, and she had gone. Then I could be alone 
 with my memory and the twilight, and dream as 
 I watched the swallows screaming in a game of 
 tag over the chimney pipes. I no longer went 
 to the little restaurant around the corner of the 
 Rue des Deux Amis to dine. I laid in a few
 
 40 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 provisions. I had a certain dread of leaving my 
 abode beneath the roofs lest a word from her 
 might come in my absence; lest she herself 
 might rap at my door, as a surprise, and find 
 me out. Such things have happened to those 
 who have lost all hope. 
 
 As for Briston, I saw nothing of him; but this 
 was not strange, as he came rarely to the studio. 
 He had gone his precise and methodical way, 
 glad, no doubt, that the luncheon was over. 
 Frankly I never wanted to see him again. Thus 
 I suffered, and waited a whole month. 
 
 I knew that step on the stairs ; the slow stamp 
 of the telegraph boy. 
 
 I rushed to open the door. 
 
 "For me?" I called down to him. 
 
 "Oui, Monsieur" 
 
 "Hurry!" I commanded. 
 
 I leaped down and met him halfway, snatched 
 the blue pneumatique from him, and gave him a 
 franc. I might as thoughtlessly have given 
 him a gold louis. Then, with a hand that 
 trembled more than when I had written my 
 own address that memorable afternoon, I tore
 
 THE ENTHUSIAST 41 
 
 open the perforated, glued edges of the petit 
 bleu, and read: 
 
 DEAR FRIEND: You see I now keep my promise. Then 
 now you must come to-morrow at five, and we make 
 the little talk and the tea, is it not? PAZITA. 
 
 32, Rue Gaston Lacroix. 
 
 "Pazita!" What a pretty name! It was 
 just the name for her. I would call her "Paz," 
 and she would laugh and not mind. Yes 
 Paz was even prettier. The world seemed 
 mine now. 
 
 I opened the windows wide to let in the sun- 
 shine from the kind old world, tingling with joy 
 as I read and reread the note which her own hand 
 had written, copying the address lest anything 
 might happen to the original. To-morrow 
 seemed an eternity away. A whole day and a 
 night, and then until five. And yet I had waited 
 a month a whole month, hour by hour. 
 
 I could go out now for a long walk, and so I 
 walked and walked, keeping mostly to the boule- 
 vards, teeming with happy people, bathed in 
 the warmth of this delicious spring morning. 
 Everywhere crept the merry sunshine, even in
 
 42 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 the most humble corners; all things glittered in 
 facets of light. The lazy air was exhilarating, 
 and as soft as a caress. Most of that night I 
 lay wide awake, planning a dinner of my own. 
 
 I had amassed my entire fortune on the table 
 by my bed nearly five louis ! With one hun- 
 dred francs one can be en fete! She would dine 
 with me, of course after tea. This time it 
 would not be a Briston luncheon, it would be a 
 real dinner. Even if I had to lie to her and tell 
 her one of my uncles had died, that art to me 
 had now become an idle amusement, not a 
 necessity. For one evening I should live. It 
 is less hard to have nothing when one has been 
 happy. The morrow would take care of itself. 
 
 At five the next afternoon my heart beat 
 fast as I entered a modern apartment house in 
 the Rue Gaston Lacroix. 
 
 "Do not trouble yourself, Madame," I said 
 to the concierge, as she indicated the elevator 
 and the right button for the fifth floor. "I will 
 walk up." 
 
 And I gained the fifth floor quicker than the 
 shaky little elevator could have made it. Then,
 
 THE ENTHUSIAST 43 
 
 panting for breath, I touched the electric button 
 beside an imitation oak door with a red doormat, 
 and waited. 
 
 Presently I heard the soft tread of slippered 
 feet and the faint swish of silk. Something 
 began to sing in my ears. The door opened 
 wide, and I looked up into her eyes. 
 
 "My deah boy!" she exclaimed, clasping both 
 my hands in her own. 
 
 Had she been beautiful before, she was at 
 that moment positively radiant in her soft silk 
 peignoir, all the glorious richness of her dark 
 hair revealed. 
 
 ''You see," she laughed, "I welcome you wiz- 
 out zee ceremone, isn't it? My maid I send out. " 
 
 "I am so glad," I exclaimed. : 'You you 
 don't know how happy I am how long it has 
 seemed. You were dear to have asked me." 
 
 She still held my hands firmly, like a good 
 comrade. 
 
 " Now zen you believe I keep my word 
 zat is not like every bod', hein?" 
 
 I felt an irrepressible impulse to take her in 
 my arms, but she understood me like a flash,
 
 44 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 and held me with one jewelled hand, so to speak, 
 at arm's length. 
 
 "Come now zen you shall see my chateau 
 my chateau!" 
 
 She laughed heartily, leading me along the 
 narrow corridor and into a cozy salon, and 
 through it into her boudoir, a pretty little bou- 
 doir, hung in old-rose silk, with a duchesse table 
 covered with gold-topped bottles, and here in 
 a chair of old-rose brocade, drawn close to her 
 lounge, she placed me. 
 
 "And zat good Monsieur Briston, how is he?" 
 she began. "Zat quiet fellow? Dear me, he 
 was so sick on zee steamer. Are zey not fearful, 
 zoze voyages?" 
 
 "I have not seen him," I confessed, "since 
 our luncheon. He cares for nothing but his 
 work, you know," I added, with a beating 
 heart. 
 
 " Of course," she returned, sinking among the 
 lace cushions of the lounge. "Well, zat is good. 
 Zere are so many zat do notzing; so many zat 
 think of notzing but gambling, and zoze stupide 
 leetle women."
 
 THE ENTHUSIAST 45 
 
 "You can make me very happy," I returned 
 impulsively. "I want you to dine with me to- 
 night. You will, won't you? I I have 
 waited so long." 
 
 "Non, my deah boy," she laughed softly, 
 sinking her head back among the cushions. 
 "Zat is not possible." 
 
 Then, seeing my look of utter disappoint- 
 ment, she leaned toward me, so close that I felt 
 the maddening warmth of her breath. 
 
 "Come," she said cheerfully. "Now, zen, 
 I have a bettaire idea; it is zat you dine wiz 
 us just as you are en famille." 
 
 "With us? I do not understand," I 
 stammered. 
 
 "Ah, I not tell you yes, it is quite true," 
 she laughed. 
 
 "Raoul!" she called. 
 
 As the resonant voice of a man in answer 
 came through the half-closed portiere, I half 
 started from my chair. 
 
 A rapid sentence in Spanish from her lips 
 was answered in fluent French. 
 
 "Pray present my excuses to Monsieur Bris-
 
 46 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 ton's friend," reached my ears, "and say I shall 
 be dressed in a moment." 
 
 I was on my feet now, gazing at the half- 
 closed portiere in astonishment embarrassed 
 overwhelmed. 
 
 The next instant the portiere was flung 
 open and there entered a military-looking young 
 fellow with a swarthy skin. 
 
 "My husband, Senor Pazita," she said gra- 
 ciously. 
 
 Smiling, he strode toward me, and put forth 
 his hand in a hearty welcome. 
 
 I grasped it. 
 
 We dined. 
 
 Marie came the next morning. She read me 
 like a book. I must have seemed very much 
 changed. 
 
 "Eh bien, mon petit, you have seen your 
 Brazilienne," she declared. 
 
 "And her husband," I returned. 
 
 "A h, zut alors!" exclaimed Marie. 
 
 "The Mouton d'Or," I ventured. "Let us 
 dine there to-night you and I."
 
 THE ENTHUSIAST 
 
 47 
 
 "Willingly, mon petit. As I told Monsieur 
 Briston, one eats well there for three francs." 
 And Marie went singing into the kitchen. 
 
 C'est la vie! 
 
 Senor Pazita is no more. Thai is to say he is no more the 
 husband of Madame da Varraguillo. 
 
 " Those stupide marriages, " she said to me only the other 
 night after her return from St. Petersburg. F. B. S.
 
 It was Briston who tried his best to discourage me about 
 going to Budapest. He told me plainly in his thin, dry 
 way after dinner at Lavenues that I would never return 
 alive. That I would be captured by bandits whereas 
 Madame da Varraguillo had more sense. She packed my 
 trunk a fact and saw that I received my right change 
 to a sou, when I bought my ticket, and thus I was swept 
 to the borderland of the Orient, where I had been before, 
 but I never believed when I started that I would again meet 
 there my old friend the Countess Navieskowska. 
 
 Life is strange! F. B. S.
 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 
 THE SAVAGE 
 
 THOUGH Pest was awake for the night, the 
 cafes choked with tobacco smoke and alive 
 with music of her gypsy bands, ancient Buda, that 
 snug, old town across the Danube, was going to 
 bed, too old for late hours. 
 
 But few lights remained to designate her 
 taverns and her crooked hill streets, and these 
 now went rapidly out, one by one, as if some un- 
 seen hand beneath the blue veil of moonlight 
 was stealthily putting away Buda's jewels for 
 the night. Standing firm above the low, ram* 
 
 51
 
 52 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 bling town strewn about its base, the sheer walls 
 and domed roofs of the new Royal Palace 
 gleamed under the full spring moon like the 
 granite sides of a mountain. 
 
 Upon the white marble roof of a modern villa 
 in Pest overlooking the quay of the moonlit 
 river, in two wicker chairs, drawn cozily up to a 
 coffee table, upon which a single candle glowed 
 under a scarlet shade, the young Countess 
 Anna Navieskowska and myself smoked in 
 silence that restful understanding which is 
 the right of old friends old friends, I say. 
 
 The Countess Navieskowska possessed that 
 calm, savage beauty peculiar to Russian women 
 of noble blood, a subtle beauty which is purely 
 racial. You saw this in her fine nose, in the 
 curve of her delicate nostrils, in the sensitive, 
 expressive mouth, cold almost to cruelty in re- 
 pose, alert, eager, and frank as a child's when 
 she smiled, baring her exquisite teeth you 
 saw it, too, in the ivory whiteness of her skin, in 
 her slender, shapely hands with their tapering 
 fingers. 
 
 She lay immovable in her chair, her small
 
 THE SAVAGE 53 
 
 head pillowed deep among the cushions, the pure 
 oval of her face framed by her intensely black 
 hair, which she wore en bandeaux half hiding 
 her temples and her small ears. Her dark, 
 brilliant eyes were half closed her slim, sinu- 
 ous body wrapped snugly in a rug of soft, gray 
 fur shielding her bare neck from the night breeze, 
 her young throat showing above the edge of fur 
 as white as ivory in the moonlight. 
 
 Had my friend the Countess Navieskowska 
 remained in Moscow after her husband's exile, 
 I am certain she would have lost her reason. 
 No woman ever loved her husband more than 
 she. She idolized him, and fought with an in- 
 domitable courage to save him, even to that 
 last agonizing day when all hope was gone, and 
 he who had been fearless enough to speak his 
 mind began his long journey to Siberia, a poli- 
 tical prisoner. Far better had they shot him, 
 as they intended far better! 
 
 Thus had the countess come to Budapest with 
 her sorrow. Here she could live quietly, sur- 
 rounded by her many Hungarian friends, whose 
 duty it was, like my own, to cheer her brave,
 
 .54 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 young heart, to help her forget, to amuse her, 
 for she was much beloved. 
 
 Now and then, as I lay gazing up at the great 
 vault of sapphire above us, powdered to-night 
 with millions of stars, the countess slowly raised 
 her tapering fingers to her parted lips, and blew 
 through two rows of pearls a little smoke from 
 the best of Russian cigarettes, that rose and 
 vanished like a whiff of incense in the cool night 
 breeze. Would that the memory of him might 
 have vanished as easily for the sake of his poor 
 lady! 
 
 Vague sounds drifted up from the Danube 
 veiled in mist. The murmur of men's voices 
 from strange craft moored along the quay out 
 of the worrying current, the soft, mocking laugh- 
 ter of women, coming from no one knew where 
 save from below in the moonlight, the sudden 
 whine and creak of a rudder sweep as some high- 
 sterned barge was disgorged from the cavernous 
 arch of a bridge, and proceeded prudently in 
 the grip of the silver tide. 
 
 Again sounds that were short and sharp as a 
 pistol shot. The dropping of an oar on a passing
 
 THE SAVAGE 55 
 
 deck, the plunge of a timely anchor; then all 
 again would be still so still that the changing 
 breeze carried faintly across from the outskirts 
 of Buda the strident music of a peasants' dance. 
 
 A cock crowed lustily, seemingly from mid- 
 stream. 
 
 The Countess Navieskowska touched my hand. 
 
 :< You are not cold, my poor friend?" she 
 asked dreamily. 
 
 "Cold?" I laughed. "In this paradise? 
 One is warm with its beauty." 
 
 With that rapid, feline litheness peculiar to 
 her race, she glided back against the pillows, 
 turning to me with her frank smile, her dark eyes 
 illuminated for an instant by the leaping flame 
 of the candle beneath the scarlet shade, whose 
 glow flushed with a rosy light the curve of her 
 throat and chin. 
 
 'You have been asleep," I ventured. 
 
 "Nearly," she confessed in her low, cool 
 voice, which always seemed to me to be stifling 
 the memory of tears. "Yes, for a little while 
 I slept. The moonlight is kinder than the dark. 
 Now I am quite awake," she added, with a
 
 56 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 forced little laugh. "Come! You shall tell 
 me ah, yes, about your gypsy your savage 
 with his black fiddle, the one you promised I 
 should hear." 
 
 She turned upon her side, pillowing her cheek 
 in the palm of her left hand ringless, save for 
 its thin gold memory of him, and I began gladly 
 under the eager gleam of her eyes, as the candle 
 flame died in its socket. 
 
 "You shall hear my gypsy if I can find him," 
 I declared. "Banda Bela is the devil to find 
 when you want him. You see, being a pure- 
 blood gypsy, he plays wherever his savage whim 
 pleases him; never in the well-known cafes, 
 generally in one of the poorest in Pest, and then 
 not for long. He falls in love too easily. A 
 pretty woman is as irresistible to him as gambling 
 or a new suit of clothes. You can never depend 
 on this thirty-sixth son of the great Banda 
 Laczi the most famous of all the gypsy fid- 
 dlers that Hungary has known for hah* a cen- 
 tury. Poor old Banda Laczi died when Bela 
 was a boy. 
 
 "Turn your head! Can you see that bar-
 
 THE SAVAGE 57 
 
 rack of a building over there close to the church? 
 It is a sordid old tenement. It is where nearly 
 all the gypsy bands in Pest have lived for genera- 
 tions. It is there that the great Banda Laczi 
 died. He whose name was a household word 
 in the land of the Magyars. He who played 
 before the king, before princes and noblewomen 
 at the coming-out parties of the little prin- 
 cesses. 
 
 "Everywhere that black fiddle of his was 
 heard. In Pest and Buda, in the castles along 
 the Danube, at the great hunting and wedding 
 feasts that lasted often for days; as far as the 
 snow peaks of the Tatra they summoned their 
 favourite gypsy, old Banda Laczi, and they 
 filled his servile hand with gold. It was he who 
 knew how to cure their sorrows, put fresh cour- 
 age in their hearts. Love, gayety, and good- 
 fellowship followed in the wake of his fiddle. 
 Ah, they loved him!" 
 
 The countess murmured in Russian: "Boze 
 moi, Boze mol Bozel Biedny moi loubiemiel" 
 Her voice full of sympathy as I paused for a 
 whiff of my cigarette. I saw that she was in-
 
 58 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 terested, for she had forgotten her own. Pres- 
 ently it dropped from her hand, and a spark 
 scurried toward the gutter of the low balus- 
 trade. 
 
 "And so, old Banda died," I resumed, "over 
 there in that wretched tenement, in a high-post 
 bed, under an embroidered coverlet, surrounded 
 by his wives and his many children; his black 
 fiddle lay across his knees, a silver salver across 
 his lap; this and the coverlet he had purchased 
 with the last of his gold. With his last strength 
 he sliced and partook of a ham from the silver 
 salver to prove to all the world he was a gypsy 
 and not a Jew. He had played before the king! 
 He wished to die like a prince. 
 
 "So you see, my dear Countess, the kind of 
 proud gypsy stock Banda Bela came from. He 
 was the great Banda's favourite son. The 
 black fiddle fell to his lot. It is amazing that 
 Bela has not smashed its precious shell a thou- 
 sand times in his escapades. It was somewhat 
 like giving a wild man a rare egg for safe-keeping. 
 Escapades! Bela has had no end of them." 
 I laughed. "Do you know that a few years
 
 THE SAVAGE 69 
 
 ago that devil of a Bela nearly kidnapped the 
 wife of a foreign ambassador?" 
 
 The countess opened her eyes wide. 
 
 "I do not wonder you are surprised," I con- 
 tinued. "You who in Russia regard the serf 
 as incapable of revolt, even when it is a ques- 
 tion of the heart. But what I tell you is quite 
 true. He nearly kidnapped the wife of a foreign 
 ambassador!" 
 
 : 'That could not have happened in my coun- 
 try," she said slowly. "Your over-gallant 
 gypsy would have been knouted to death." A 
 look of pain came into her dark eyes I had not 
 seen before. "Ah! Those poor, dumb people 
 of ours!" she added. "My heart has ached for 
 them more than once, my friend. I have seen 
 with my own eyes such cruelty ah, God, such 
 cruelty ! " Here she again broke off into Russian, 
 seeming to forget my very presence. 
 
 "Da, tak bezchlcrwiechestwo zestoko! I milo- 
 cerdie nie kogda nie znaiet! Boze moil" (Yes! 
 Such inhuman cruelty, and mercy is unknown 
 to them! My God!) 
 
 For a moment she was silent.
 
 60 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "Kidnapped," she repeated, rousing herself 
 suddenly from her reverie. "That is funny!" 
 
 She leaned nearer, eager for me to resume. 
 
 " It was not so funny for his excellency," I 
 declared. " He threatened to kill Bela on sight." 
 
 "If he could find him," she interposed 
 naively. 
 
 "Precisely. Bela had vanished. Not even 
 his great friend, old Toll Lajos fat, contented, 
 old Toll Lajos, who plays the clarinet better 
 than any other knew where he was that 
 time. Bela has the strength of a bull, and an 
 ungovernable temper. In point of muscle he is 
 a match for ten able-bodied ambassadors, but 
 he ran like a thief, like all gypsies; they are great 
 cowards. A Hungarian with a stick can scat- 
 ter twenty of them with guns." 
 
 "And is he good-looking, your gypsy?" she 
 asked, as fascinated as a child now listening to a 
 new fairy tale. 
 
 "Um! He reminds you a good deal of a 
 clean, well-fed brigand. Stocky, with shoulders 
 and arms like a blacksmith," I added, as she 
 stretched forth a white arm toward a silver box
 
 THE SAVAGE 61 
 
 of cigarettes, and I struck a match in the moon- 
 light. 
 
 "Banda Bela is now, I should judge, past 
 thirty," I continued, "and too lazy in his way to 
 have learned any language save his own gypsy 
 tongue. Even his understanding of Magyar is 
 very limited. His gray, jadelike eyes have that 
 peculiar glitter in them of a wolf's, especially 
 when a new air or a pretty woman pleases him. 
 There is the touch of the brute, too, in his short- 
 cropped, black side whiskers and his black 
 moustache, which he dyes and keeps neatly 
 trimmed over his heavy, determined jaw. Add 
 to this his swarthy skin, and you have Bela, 
 all save his smile. His smile is irresistible." 
 
 "It is not a very attractive picture you have 
 drawn of your gypsy," said she, and I thought I 
 detected a note of disappointment in her voice. 
 
 "You see, I am giving the devil his due," I 
 returned, "and Bela is mostly devil. Last year 
 he fell in love, and followed her to her own camp. 
 She was sixteen years old, and the daughter of 
 the chief's favourite wife, but she left him in a 
 week for one of her own tribe. Once, Toll
 
 62 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 Lajos told me, Bela was camped with some gyp- 
 sies near Vacz, and I drove half a day over the 
 wind-swept, fenceless country to find him. We 
 were always good friends, Bela and I, but I 
 learned from a village where they had played at 
 a dance the night before, that the camp had 
 stolen a pig, and had been driven off." 
 
 "Tell me more of his love affairs," she asked 
 eagerly. 
 
 " He will tell you most of them on his fiddle," 
 I replied. "You shall hear them if I can find 
 him. I'll hunt up old Toll Lajos to-night; he 
 will know where Bela is if any one does." 
 
 Again she stretched forth her hand, this time 
 covering my own with a friendly pressure. 
 
 "You are very good," she said. "It is what 
 I need music the music of your gypsy." 
 
 "And when you have heard that black fiddle," 
 said I, "it will have told you better stories than 
 I. It will tell you strange tales of love and grim 
 legends of the forest. It will have laughed and 
 cried to you. It will have won your heart." 
 
 She gave a little sigh of delight. Below us 
 the river lay silent in its course, the capricious
 
 THE SAVAGE 63 
 
 breeze shirring its silver tide under a paling 
 moon. 
 
 "You will not forget your promise," she said, 
 as I rose to bid her good-night. 
 
 Then I summoned her maid, and took my 
 leave, and, late as it was, started in search of 
 Toll Lajos. 
 
 "Ah! Banda Bela!" he exclaimed, as I 
 questioned him at an early hour of the morning 
 in a big cafe. "Yes, yes he play now hi 
 Lipot Cafe. He came now two days already." 
 And smiling, he held up, in explanation of his 
 broken English, two pudgy brown fingers over 
 the wet mouthpiece of his short clarinet. 
 
 Pest the next night lay glistening under a 
 thrashing rain a downpour that flushed the 
 gutters, and sent their torrents roaring into the 
 sewers. Hurrying forms, bent under umbrellas, 
 struggled on in the gusts of wind, en route to a 
 warm refuge in their favourite cafes. 
 
 Officers in hooded night coats passed, sturdy 
 peasant girls, barelegged to the knees, splashed 
 by, their layers of petticoats bobbing with their
 
 64 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 easy stride. The wiry cab horses flashed by at 
 a spanking trot, some at full gallop, in the down- 
 pour. Yet this wretched night did not deter 
 the Countess Navieskowska. 
 
 A little before ten we had crossed the broad 
 Andrassy Ut in a cab, and were clattering along 
 in a labyrinth of side streets toward the Cafe 
 Lipot. Finally our steaming horse stopped 
 before the door of a small cafe, whose smoke- 
 fogged, curtainless windows, flanking a dingy 
 corner, resembled the tank of an aquarium filled 
 with watered milk made luminous within by a 
 sizzling arc light. Before the door hung limply 
 in the rain a tattered poster, announcing in big 
 letters: 
 
 BANDA BELA 
 
 36TH SON OF 
 
 BANDA LACZI 
 
 As we entered, and I led the countess down 
 the single aisle of the crowded little cafe, Bela 
 grinned a welcome to me over the neck of the 
 black fiddle.
 
 THE SAVAGE 6 
 
 The sudden appearance of this beautiful 
 woman, the instant recognition that she was a 
 lady and a noblewoman, seemed to electrify the 
 band. There was a glitter of savage delight in 
 Bela's jadelike eyes as he smiled and nodded to 
 a vacant table close to him. Simultaneously 
 the Czardas that wild gypsy dance they were 
 playing burst into a quickened pace. 
 
 I caught sight of old Toll Lajos as the countess 
 slipped into her chair beside me. He had de- 
 serted his big cafe to play with Bela. He had 
 tried to grin a welcome to me over his short 
 clarinet, but the frenzied speed of the Czardas 
 kept his swarthy cheeks puffed and his pudgy 
 fingers too busy with his improvised obligate 
 to do more than nod his head good-humouredly. 
 
 Every eye hi the room was now on the coun- 
 tess. 
 
 It was a silent, respectful crowd of working 
 people, with not more than a dozen women in the 
 room. The men sitting over their coffee and 
 rat-tail cigars, the collars of their damp over- 
 coats turned up despite the heat. 
 
 In the snarl and swing of that wild Czardas, 

 
 06 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 in the intricacies of its amazing harmonies and 
 speed, not a note from the band accompanying 
 the black fiddle was a fraction of a second late. 
 Banda Bela swung them with him where he 
 willed; now and then he forced his men with a 
 yell of command, the black fiddle dominating 
 them, its graceful neck lying in the hand of its 
 master, a hand as quick and pliable as a woman's, 
 as brutal in its massive strength as a fighter's. 
 
 It was a double band of sixteen men, and its 
 two cymballums and two bass viols gave a snap 
 and fire to the accompaniment that made one's 
 nerves tingle. Moreover, they played with that 
 compact ensemble that only gypsies can achieve 
 in their own music they who cannot read a 
 written note and who follow purely by intuition 
 and temperament. Bela seemed to take a 
 devilish joy in trying to lose his men by a 
 sudden change of key, by a masterly speed that 
 quickened to a blur the four slender hammers 
 of the alert cymbalists as they flew over the 
 maze of resonant strings of their cymballums. 
 
 Woe to him who did not comprehend or fal- 
 tered! Bela rapped the delinquent sharply
 
 THE SAVAGE 67 
 
 over the head with his bow. Again he crouched 
 at the far end of the aisle, and, with a yell, 
 rushed back at his band, arriving with the top 
 note of a crescendo in an unexpected key. 
 Again he would shout to them the names of a 
 score of Czardas, and force them to follow him 
 as he mixed their order. Still again he played 
 with six bows at once gathered from his band, 
 and flung them one by one back to them, until 
 there was none left but his own to continue the air. 
 
 I turned to look at the countess. Her eyes, 
 grown strangely brilliant, were riveted on Bela, 
 her lips parted, her breath coming quick. 
 
 "You are not disappointed?" I ventured. 
 
 "Ah! It is wonderful wonderful!" she 
 breathed in a voice scarcely audible, without 
 turning her head. 
 
 The Czardas ended in three rapid vibrant 
 chords. Presently the voice of a young girl 
 hovered over the black fiddle a low, tender 
 voice, a voice in which lurked together timidity 
 and fear, distrust and an aching heart. Sud- 
 denly it changed. The girl was laughing - 
 that nervous laugh of innocence. Bela's eyes
 
 68 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 were smiling straight into those of the countess, 
 and, to my amazement, her eyes now gazed into 
 his own. The voice of the girl became sweeter, 
 braver, as it sang its simple story the be- 
 ginning of an old legend. 
 
 The countess leaned forward, pressing her 
 lithe body against the edge of the marble table. 
 She slipped me a trembling hand a hand upon 
 which her rings to-night were warmer than her 
 flesh. Her cheeks were luminous, her dark 
 eyes now gleamed like jewels. 
 
 The voice of the girl sang over the ripple of a 
 forest brook, and now the sighing forest wind 
 rose from the belly of the black fiddle. Then 
 followed the deep, earnest voice of a man. 
 
 The wind in the forest increased. Above it 
 rose the full, passionate voice of the girl speak- 
 ing her heart and mind. The voice of the man 
 grew fainter, then rose in a last appeal. Then 
 came a gentle sobbing I could hear the voice 
 of the man disappear in the forest. 
 
 It was a legened of unrequited love. No one 
 but Bela could play it; old Banda Laczi had told 
 it to him on the black fiddle when Bela was a boy.
 
 THE SAVAGE 69 
 
 With a low cry of despair, the legend ended. 
 In the countess' eyes two tears welled beyond 
 her dark lashes and trickled down to the cor- 
 ners of her closed lips. Painfully she drew a 
 quick breath. She raised her head. Bela came 
 forth and bowed. 
 
 I saw her gaze rest for a moment intently on 
 the black fiddle, which he held firmly gripped 
 by the neck. Then I saw her slowly take in 
 every detail of the man before her his black, 
 carefully brushed coat, the white silk handker- 
 chief, embroidered with a green and red heart, 
 that drooped beneath the standing collar, well 
 open under his coarse, heavy throat and chin. 
 She looked keenly up into his eyes now as if 
 searching some good in them back of his smile 
 -the smile of a good-natured brigand, whose 
 mind was fascinated by the woman before him. 
 It was as if a rose were being closely observed 
 by a bandit. 
 
 "Thank you," murmured the countess. 
 
 "I kiss the hand," he returned, with 
 a low bow and the pride of a conqueror. 
 
 "Egen! Egen!" he exclaimed excitedly in
 
 70 
 
 Hungarian, putting forth his free hand to me, 
 which I grasped heartily a hand that, much 
 as a Magyar might have admired for its skill, no 
 Magyar would have deigned to touch. The 
 band now bowed eagerly, grinning like children. 
 So did a little boy of fourteen, who played the 
 viola. 
 
 "My nephew, Varos," explained Bela to me, 
 grinning back at the youngster. 
 
 He was a little embarrassed this infant, 
 with his overgrown violin, and turned his 
 dreamy, black eyes shyly away, fearing he had 
 been misunderstood. The countess smiled back 
 at him, and, in his embarrassment, he blushed, 
 and dropped his bow, which old Toll Lajos 
 recovered for him under one of the cymballums. 
 The old fellow laughed so that his small eyes 
 nearly disappeared under his fat jowls. 
 
 As we left the dingy little cafe long after mid- 
 night, I realized that all her good friends had 
 done for the Countess Navieskowska was noth- 
 ing in comparison to what Banda Bela and his 
 black fiddle had accomplished; they alone had 
 taken her completely out of herself.
 
 THE SAVAGE 71 
 
 Even as we drove back through the rain-swept 
 streets, the countess had not recovered from 
 their hypnotic influence. I noticed she was ex- 
 tremely nervous, and there still remained that bril- 
 liancy in her eyes that frankly I did not like. It 
 was as if she had taken a drug, and I reproached 
 myself more than once as we drove on that I 
 had been fool enough to have ever mentioned 
 Banda Bela. Moreover, she was strangely silent. 
 
 Indeed, not until we were in sight of her villa 
 did she open her lips. 
 
 "Will you grant me a favour?" she asked 
 abruptly. 
 
 "With all my heart," I replied, little knowing 
 what she desired. 
 
 'Then invite your savage to dinner at 
 my villa, if you wish." 
 
 "Banda Bela! But you do not know what 
 you ask, my friend." 
 
 "You will do as I wish," she said, with a cer- 
 tain calm decision. "I wish to hear him alone" 
 - she checked herself, fearing I might mis- 
 understand - "that we might hear him alone, 
 without his band."
 
 72 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "Banda Bela as your guest in your villa? 
 But, my dear Countess, that is impossible. 
 Forgive me, but I know best." 
 
 "Invite him to your hotel then," she returned, 
 piqued by my point-blank refusal. 
 
 "In Hungary," I explained, as calmly as I 
 could, "they do not invite gypsies to dinner. 
 It is unheard of. People would laugh at us. 
 The very servants would smile in their aprons, 
 and gossip about it for a year." 
 
 She turned sharply, flashing her dark eyes. 
 
 "Yet you gave Banda Bela your hand!" she 
 exclaimed hotly. 
 
 I was amazed at her attitude. She, a noble- 
 woman, defending a gypsy, an outcast, a vaga- 
 bond! Had she completely lost her reason? Or 
 was it only the passing whim of a semi-hysterical 
 woman? I could disguise the truth from her no 
 longer. 
 
 "You think me a snob," I said. 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "I am not, and you know it. To invite that 
 savage to dinner in your villa would be running 
 a risk I do not care to take two risks."
 
 THE SAVAGE 73 
 
 "The first?" she asked, in a low voice, ready 
 to defend. 
 
 "The first, my dear Countess, is that Bela is a 
 born thief, like all gypsies. You see that my 
 reason is grave enough." 
 
 "You forget that my servant, Rossinoff, was 
 once with the secret police in Petersburg," she 
 returned simply. "He is not likely to loan 
 Banda Bela the key of my jewel box." 
 
 "Granted!" I replied. "My second reason, 
 however, is that I would not leave Bela alone 
 with you an instant should the occasion be un- 
 avoidable." 
 
 She started. 
 
 "Do you suppose that serf!" she exclaimed. 
 " No ! No ! " she laughed, brightening. " There 
 is no danger in that, I promise you. Come! 
 We shall invite, too, the little nephew. He 
 speaks English, you say?" 
 
 "A little. He was with Bela's brother for a 
 year in London, I believe." 
 
 "That is excellent. He shall act as our inter- 
 preter. We shall be a partie carree. Then it 
 will be quite safe."
 
 74 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 She clapped her gloved hands in her enthu- 
 siasm, while I shrugged my shoulders, none too 
 happy over the idea. 
 
 "Very well, then," I consented. "But not to 
 your villa. He must never see the inside of 
 your house. At my hotel then, at seven-thirty 
 to-morrow. Bela will be free, for to-morrow 
 is Good Friday, and no gypsy plays a note in 
 public. It must be a fish dinner, for a gypsy 
 to-morrow, at least, pretends to be a good Catho- 
 lic, and does not touch meat. There will be no 
 difficulty in persuading Bela to accept," I de- 
 clared, as we stopped in front of the gate of her 
 villa. "I shall see that he brings both the black 
 fiddle and the little nephew. Banda Bela would 
 rather dine with you than be thrown a hundred 
 guldens." 
 
 She laughed delicious ly; as happy as a child 
 whose whim had been gratified, as I squeezed 
 my way out of the musty cab, indicated the 
 mud-smeared step for her slim foot, opened 
 my umbrella, conducted her in a gentle rain to 
 her waiting maid, and bade her good-night. 
 
 You enter the Grand Hotel Magyar Salloda
 
 THE SAVAGE 75 
 
 by a square hall, draped in magenta velvet cur- 
 tains. Beyond this old-fashioned entrance lies 
 a vast ballroom, lighted only upon rare public 
 occasions. At the extremity of this cavernous 
 room a narrow corridor leads in two turns and 
 a discreet twist to a small private dining room 
 without a bell. 
 
 It was in this cabinet particulier that our 
 partie carree was dining on the following night, 
 Banda Bela facing his dreamy, black-eyed 
 little nephew Varos. In a carved armchair, the 
 Countess Navieskowska, radiantly beautiful in 
 a decollete gown of glittering steel-blue scales, 
 sat facing me. It was a gown that only a great 
 beauty could have worn. A woman whose subtle 
 lines were perfection. 
 
 Banda Bela wore for the occasion a black 
 broadcloth coat, a dress waistcoat, revealing an 
 immaculate, many-plaited shirt front, and a 
 black cravat ornamented beneath a standing 
 collar by an oval silver brooch, studded with 
 mother-of-pearl and turquoise, evidently a gypsy 
 heirloom. 
 
 Though I well knew the suppressed amaze-
 
 78 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 merit of the maltre d'hotel and his equally sphinx- 
 like waiters serving a fish dinner to two gypsies, 
 they concealed their astonishment stoically, 
 though I could not help catching sight of the 
 positive alarm in the chief clerk's eyes as I went 
 forward to welcome my guests on their ar- 
 rival. 
 
 Like his celebrated father, Banda Bela had 
 been summoned to play before a prince and 
 princess, yet never in his whole life had the great 
 Banda Laczi been bidden, as his son to-night, 
 to dine with royalty. 
 
 This, at least, was what was passing in Bela's 
 mind, for it was plain enough he took me for a 
 nobleman of colossal importance and untold 
 wealth. None but so supreme a personage as 
 myself would have dared invite him. The wine, 
 the silver dishes, the roses, the shaded lights, and 
 the silent servility of the servants all con- 
 vinced him of this. True, he had heard of 
 America and its millions, though America was 
 as vague to him as China. I was evidently the 
 Emperor of America's brother, and a multimil- 
 lionaire.
 
 THE SAVAGE 77 
 
 Banda Bela was in the glory of his savage 
 pride. His smile to-night was keyed to one of 
 devilish content. In the midst of this luxury 
 with the most beautiful and gracious woman he 
 had ever met within arm's reach of him ham- 
 pered as he was to explain all he felt, he talked 
 incessantly in gypsy which the dreamy-eyed 
 little nephew, waking up at intervals, like the 
 Dormouse in "Alice in Wonderland," trans- 
 lated to the best of his infant ability to the 
 countess and myself in his limited English. 
 
 At the end of every gypsy sentence Bela 
 drained his glass. Never had I seen a man drink 
 as he did and keep sober. Though, like the 
 martinet of an uncle he was, he allowed Varos 
 nothing but lemonade. Before we had reached 
 the salad, the bottle of mellow Tokay before 
 him was empty; he, too, had drained the lion's 
 share of champagne, and I now saw the surface 
 line of my private bottle of Scotch whiskey sink 
 lower and lower under his active hand. 
 
 Now and then the Dormouse would resume 
 his struggles. 
 
 "My onk'l he say he happy," explained the
 
 78 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 Dormouse lazily. "That he soon play for the 
 beautiful lady." And the Dormouse nodded 
 sleepily over his third helping of ice cream to the 
 black fiddle in its case in the corner. 
 
 "My onk'l he say he honour with heart the 
 beauty of the lady. He honour with whole 
 heart America and Russia." 
 
 '''Alien Magyar nemset!" I returned, drinking 
 Bela's health in Hungarian, though it was risky, 
 for his swarthy jowls now had a dull flush about 
 them, and the cords of his bull neck stood out 
 like bronze. 
 
 We had now reached our liqueurs. Bela, with 
 a hand as steady as a surgeon's, lighted the 
 countess' cigarette. She had been graciousness 
 itself throughout this strange dinner; kind to 
 the little nephew, clever in her repartee, and 
 fearless in her undisguised admiration of the sav- 
 age on her right. She turned now, and nodded 
 pleadingly to the black fiddle in the corner. 
 
 There came from Bela a sharp command 
 the command of a general about to lead a charge 
 - and the Dormouse brought the black fiddle 
 from its case.
 
 THE SAVAGE 79 
 
 Standing close to the countess, seated in her 
 chair, Banda Bela began. The black fiddle 
 awakened under his massive, vibrant hand, 
 alive and eager for the conquest as if in league 
 with its master. Its voice became insistent and 
 human as a lover's. 
 
 Presently I saw the countess weaken and 
 grow numb under its spell. Her white arms 
 lay listless in her lap. She sat there as in 
 a dream, a faint smile playing about the 
 corners of her mouth, her eyes half closed, 
 her head slightly bent, like a woman sure of 
 acquittal. 
 
 Not for an instant did Banda Bela take his 
 eyes from her; now and then he bent his black 
 fiddle lower and nearer, until its voice spoke in 
 her ear little ears that burned and tingled 
 with a strange delight. Banda Bela played to 
 win her heart, and, by God, he did ! 
 
 I felt the cold sweat creep to my forehead, and 
 I grew sick at heart. She was no longer my 
 gracious friend, but a woman pitifully drunk 
 now under the power of sensuality. The ner- 
 vous tremor of her hands, her brilliant, dilated
 
 80 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 eyes staring vacantly at the smouldering tip of 
 her cigarette, burning itself out in her dessert 
 plate. The catlike tenseness of her body sent 
 my heart to my throat. 
 
 "Go to bed!" commanded Bela, over his 
 sweeping bow to the sleepy nephew, who rose 
 obediently, bowed, and left the room. 
 
 "Out!" he thundered brusquely in Hun- 
 garian to the mattre d'hotel, who had opened the 
 door indiscreetly. 
 
 Before I could summon the mattre d'hotel 
 back, to my dismay, he, too, disappeared. Un- 
 able to contain myself longer, I rose, and went 
 over to the countess. 
 
 "This must end," I said, now thoroughly 
 alarmed. "You will be ill." 
 
 She buried her face deep in her hands, shak- 
 ing her head slowly in reply. 
 
 "Countess!" I exclaimed. 
 
 She did not raise her head, but broke into 
 hysterical sobbing. 
 
 "Stop! Do you hear?" I cried, and put 
 forth my hand threateningly toward the black 
 fiddle and its master.
 
 THE SAVAGE 81 
 
 Bela slipped aside and grinned, and a great 
 dominant chord rose to mock me. 
 
 "Do you not see the countess is ill?" I de- 
 clared, but he paid no heed. 
 
 Twice I opened the door, and shouted for the 
 servants. The great ballroom beyond echoed my 
 voice. 
 
 Again I went to her side. 
 
 "Anna!" I pleaded. "Listen to me." 
 
 She started at the sound of her name, then 
 raised her head from her tear-stained hands. 
 
 "Play! Play! Play!" she insisted. "Play 
 to me! Oh, play to me! Play!" 
 
 The voice of the black fiddle drowned her 
 words. 
 
 The fight was in me now. I would have done 
 my best, but I still held my head. He could 
 have killed me with a blow, and a fight, I knew, 
 would only make matters worse than they were. 
 It would create an open scandal, and I dared not 
 for her sake. 
 
 Bela understood me like a flash, as he caught 
 sight of my clenched hands. Instantly the black 
 fiddle assumed a tone of apology. It was my
 
 82 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 chance. Much as I dreaded it, I left the room, 
 and sprang down the corridor, in search of the 
 night clerk or the maitre d'hotel, who, I knew, 
 would bring matters to a quiet, respectable 
 end. 
 
 I had not taken three strides in the deserted 
 ballroom before a stifled cry reached my ears. 
 As I burst open the door of the private dining 
 room, the Countess Navieskowska lay in Banda 
 Bela's arms in a dead faint. 
 
 " You dog of a gypsy ! " I shouted. 
 
 He wheeled sharply round with a look of in- 
 solent defiance, still holding her in his arms 
 slightly clear of her chair. The next instant I 
 had seized the black fiddle that lay on the 
 table, and, raising it above my head, threatened 
 to smash it to pieces over the silver candelabra. 
 
 "Here is the end of this devil of yours!" I 
 cried. 
 
 The threat told. He let the countess slip 
 from his arms. Then he sprang toward me. 
 Then, to my surprise, halted, a cowardly terror 
 in his eyes. His voice came weakly, as if the 
 effort strangled him.
 
 THE SAVAGE 83 
 
 "Pardon, Seigneur!" he gasped. "Give me 
 
 - give me that." 
 
 His outstretched hands shook as if palsied, 
 yet he dared not touch the black fiddle I still 
 held threateningly above my head 
 
 I glanced at the countess. She lay in the 
 carved armchair as pale as wax and scarcely 
 breathing. 
 
 "Seigneur!" he cried hoarsely. "I am a dog 
 
 - give that to me. It was my father's, Banda 
 Laczi's." 
 
 "Go!" I said, and I passed him the black 
 fiddle. 
 
 By the time I had reached the countess, 
 Banda Bela had vanished. 
 
 After some moments, which seemed inter- 
 minable, she opened her dark eyes, and stared 
 at me like a stranger. Then slowly I helped 
 her to her feet, and, supporting her, we passed 
 out together through the deserted ballroom. 
 
 "It was not your fault, dear friend," she mur- 
 mured faintly. 
 
 She leaned wearily against me, uncertain of 
 her strength, to gain her waiting carriage.
 
 84 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 And yet, I repeat no woman ever loved 
 her husband more than the Countess Navies- 
 kowska. She idolized him, and fought with 
 that indomitable courage to save him until the 
 last even when there was no hope. 
 
 The nephew leads a band of his own now in Monimartre; 
 I saw him the other night. He vaguely remembers the coun- 
 tess and told me confidentially that his uncle's method of 
 playing a Czardas was old-fashioned. F. B. S.
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 VILLA BY THE SEA
 
 My nest beneath the roofs in the Rue des Deux Amis had 
 became insufferably hot these July days. It was Marie who 
 advised me to get a rest and some fresh air along the Norman 
 Coast. She suggested Les Rockers and the Cheval Blanc. 
 But for Marie's suggestion I should not have seen my friend 
 Toupin and his Villa Rose. F. B. S.
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 
 VILLA BY THE SEA 
 
 alluring poster heralding the opening 
 < season at Bel- Air-Plage "The Pearl of 
 the Norman Coast" had been tacked up by 
 the enterprising real-estate company in every 
 railroad station from Paris to Trouville. 
 
 This happily conceived lithograph resembled 
 Dinard at its gayest, with Monte Carlo in the 
 middle distance, and the Garden of Eden fading 
 away in a violet haze in the background. The 
 day this polychromatic lie depicted was one of 
 sparkling sunshine. Famous beauties of the 
 
 87
 
 88 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 Parisian stage were bathing in an emerald green 
 and sapphire surf. Golf, tennis, and diabolo 
 were in full swing on the velvety dunes. Every 
 child on the perfect beach was exquisitely 
 dressed and beaming with health. Their sand 
 forts flaunted the tiny flags of all nations, a con- 
 vincing proof in itself of Bel-Air's international 
 popularity. Their mammas were all young and 
 smartly gowned; everybody owned a new auto- 
 mobile, and the men of untold wealth and leisure 
 lolling about their superb cars were smiling in 
 faultlessly pressed flannels. There was a "joy 
 of life" about the Pearl of the Norman Coast 
 that to the gullible bourgeoisie was irresistible. 
 It is needless to say that nothing the gay poster 
 depicted existed at Bel-Air. 
 
 Bel-Air is a place a crow would avoid. It is 
 too lonely --too bare. The low, jagged dunes 
 fronting the sea are flanked by a line of new 
 brick villas that stand up as stark against the 
 sky as a row of packing boxes on end. They 
 have an air of being stranded there at high tide. 
 A few tufts of wire grass struggle here and there 
 through the shifting sand for an existence. The
 
 VILLA BY THE SEA 89 
 
 solitary pedestrian passing the Pearl of the 
 Norman Coast after dark whistles for comfort 
 until he gets by. When it rains, Bel-Air be- 
 comes even more desolate. It becomes tragic 
 - but it suits that genial friend of mine, Mon- 
 sieur Paul Hippolyte Toupin. It is gay enough 
 at his Villa Rose. 
 
 Toupin adores the seashore. He rented the 
 Villa Rose with enthusiasm. "Paris!" he has 
 a habit of exclaiming. "Mais c'est la miser e, 
 mon cher!" ("But 'tis dire misery, my good 
 fellow!") Despite the fact that this bon viveur 
 of a Parisian knows the "misery" of Paris as 
 well as the inside of his pocket, and has, during 
 most of his fifty years, enjoyed his full share of 
 its gayety. He has known, too, its strenuous 
 side, for Toupin has twice been elected deputy, 
 is decorated with the Legion of Honour, and 
 has amassed a snug fortune in commerce. His 
 Villa Rose, another horror in brick with ma- 
 jolica trimmings, which has the distinction of 
 being isolated from the end of the line of packing 
 boxes, is the first to be opened and the last to 
 be closed.
 
 90 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 Its four brick walls afford the only shade in a 
 ten -acre lot of sand shelving back from the dunes 
 to the main road. Here there is another box in 
 brick the Hotel des Amis Reunies out of 
 whose windows are hung to dry the bathing suits 
 of some theatrical ladies on vacation, who spend 
 most of their time in calico wrappers purchased 
 in Montmartre. 
 
 You enter the Toupin property by a white 
 gate the clasp of the necklace of barbed wire, 
 back of which, Cosette, a patient mite of a 
 donkey, is picketed, ready for an emergency, 
 nosing around the tufts of wire grass within the 
 limit of her chain, preening her long, velvety 
 ears for hours in the gentle breeze screening over 
 the dunes; standing in meditation when it driz- 
 zles; grateful that she possesses a shady side 
 when the wind is west and Bel-Air shimmers 
 under the noonday sun, though her shadow is so 
 small it is hardly worth while contemplating; 
 never knowing what hour of the day or night she 
 may be called upon to save the situation. 
 Tuesday it was nearly three in the morning be- 
 fore she got to bed. I have had many a long
 
 VILLA BY THE SEA 91 
 
 talk with Cosette, and I am convinced she con- 
 siders the Villa Rose a maison desfous, which in 
 candid French means an insane asylum. She 
 will tell me almost anything entre nous if I will 
 only scratch her ears, close down where they 
 emerge from her strong, dusty, little neck. 
 
 Toupin bathes early and late. A big green 
 wave smashing over his fat back in September 
 makes him roar with delight. He loves to lie 
 and bake in the hot sand, packing himself well 
 up to his pointed gray beard, and cracking 
 away the crust with a yawn when he is suf- 
 ficiently baked. He loves as well to doze in his 
 canvas chair, which he fills to the squeezing 
 point, and whose left leg, still labelled with the 
 price from the bazaar, creaks ominously under 
 his weight. 
 
 He will often spend the whole day between 
 tides digging for sand eels, fishing for crabs, and 
 spading up sputtering clams, and will walk for 
 miles up the beach, filling his coloured hand- 
 kerchief with glittering shells. There are days, 
 too, when Toupin goes rushing off through the 
 country in his big red car when it runs; and,
 
 9S THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 when it refuses to budge, there is his smaller one 
 a squat, greasy little automobile, as noisy as 
 a threshing machine; and when both are out of 
 commission, which often happens, there is Cos- 
 etce, whose tub of a cart has all it can do to 
 cany Toupin on a trot. 
 
 Nothing ever worries Toupin. Every day, to 
 him, rain or shine, or filled with the daily trage- 
 dies and farce comedies of life, is amusing im- 
 mensely amusing. His laugh is big and hearty, 
 like himself, a laugh that subsides hi a high- 
 keyed chuckle irrepressible, for it bubbles up 
 from the depths of his good nature. There is a 
 merry twinkle in his eyes, and his health and 
 appetite are of the best daily. There is a plenti- 
 ful sprinkling of gray hairs in his short-cropped 
 hair and pointed beard, but even these, like 
 everything else in life, Toupin takes as a joke, 
 even to the impossible moods of Madame Tou- 
 pin, who is young and pretty, a captivating little 
 brunette, slim and nervous, with the dark eyes 
 of an odalisque, and whose temperament is as 
 fickle as the sea breeze. 
 
 When Madame Toupin assumes a fit of jeal-
 
 VILLA BY THE SEA 93 
 
 ousy, plunges into extravagance, becomes the 
 next day as penitent and silent as a nun, or en- 
 joys an attack of hysterics Madame Toupin 
 is as much at home as an actress in all four 
 
 -Toupin fills out his big chest with a breath 
 of sea air, stretches forth his arms in his white 
 duck suit, and smiles over his flowing black 
 cravat. The cravat of an artist, which gives 
 him the air of a happy-go-lucky bohemian. 
 
 Toupin has no artistic taste; most of us who 
 have become slaves to it. A discord in music 
 makes me wince. A false harmony in colour 
 affects me with a sensation akin to pain. I am 
 as fastidious as an epicure in wines, and the pres- 
 entation of nourishment. Neither can I dine 
 happily under the brutal glare of a suspension 
 lamp with a pink-and-green shade, or enjoy the 
 warmth from a self-feeding stove ornamented 
 with nickel cupids. 
 
 I have a horror, too, of the damp, red table- 
 cloth and the heavy, clammy, red napkins found 
 in French villas by the sea, and thrust for future 
 identification in dull pewter rings bearing the 
 thumb marks of the maid. All these the good
 
 94 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 bourgeoisie delight in. They are in keeping with 
 the imitation bronze goddesses of spring and 
 summer poised on either side of the chocolate- 
 marble clock, whose pendulum serves as a gilt 
 swing for a china child. 
 
 They are all fresh from the bazaar in the Villa 
 Rose. Toupin spared no expense. He showed 
 me the idiot child in the swing with pride, and 
 reminded me that the clock never lost a minute. 
 Whereas the Toupins are never on time. It is 
 safer to invite them to tea to be more or less 
 sure of their arrival for an eight-o'clock dinner, 
 which they are more likely to arrive at by nine, 
 and which Toupin will merrily explain was the 
 fault of the big car refusing to budge, the thresh- 
 ing machine out of commission, and Cosette and 
 two bicycles to the rescue. 
 
 At the Villa Rose, the feasts are movable, 
 breakfast often becoming a late luncheon, din- 
 ner frequently a midnight supper, and bedtime 
 close to dawn; yet never have I seen more lavish 
 hospitality. It needs just such a red table- 
 cloth of tough fibre to stand the daily onslaught 
 of steaming dishes, and the wine is sound and
 
 VILLA BY THE SEA 95 
 
 subtle musty, cheerful bottles; some hailing 
 from an ancient chateau in Burgundy, a certain 
 golden champagne from Rheims, and a smooth, 
 savage old vintage from Corsica that would 
 make a pirate chief forsake his ship on the eve of 
 a conspiracy. 
 
 I had been hard at work for a month up the 
 coast from Bel- Air, in a picturesquely dead old sea 
 village called Les Rochers, harbouring a plain, 
 clean little tavern known as the Cheval Blanc, 
 where a houseful of fellow painters and myself 
 discussed art at luncheon, and renewed the 
 tumult at dinner. Those interminable opin- 
 ionated debates over technique and broken 
 colour, the true value of the high light, and the 
 average banality of composition in the modern 
 school. I had grown satiated with the aesthetic, 
 and longed for common old Bel-Air, for good old 
 Toupin, who could not tell a Corot or a Dau- 
 bigny from a dining-room picture in a bazaar, 
 and to whom the sun shone, rain or shine, three 
 hundred and sixty-five days in the year. 
 
 Vive la Bourgeoisie!
 
 96 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "Come and stay with us," Toupin had in- 
 sisted a dozen times in the last month, but I had 
 stuck to my unfinished canvases. The red car, 
 just out of the hospital, and still convalescent, 
 growled over to Les Rochers this August after- 
 noon, with orders to stay there or bring me back. 
 
 "Three old friends and my little niece are 
 here," Toupin had added, in his insistent note. 
 
 To-day I needed no urging. In half an hour 
 I had abandoned the Cheval Blanc and its 
 long-haired pre-Raphaelites, and was en route 
 for the Villa Rose. 
 
 The red car left me at the white gate, smok- 
 ing like a smudge, and still suffering from lung 
 trouble on the starboard side, and I wondered 
 how any man but Toupin could smile when he 
 had paid eight thousand francs for so blatant a 
 swindle. Possibly, I thought as I passed 
 through the white gate, it had been purchased, 
 like the rest of his seaside possessions, at the 
 bazaar. 
 
 The sun was setting as I stopped to rub Cos- 
 ette's ears, a red disk sinking into a calm sea as 
 heavy as oil, and even Cosette was grateful for
 
 VILLA BY THE SEA 97 
 
 the cool of the approaching twilight after the 
 heat of the long day. 
 
 Over on the crest of the dunes, to the right of 
 the Villa Rose, a group of four figures stood 
 watching me from the platform of a portable 
 glass summer-house, an unpopular rendezvous 
 for lovers, but a snug retreat, with its swinging 
 canvas chairs, when the wind blew. So I left 
 Cosette, and trudged up hi the heavy sand 
 toward the group from which Toupin now waved 
 a welcome to me, looking like a fat Pierrot in his 
 suit of white duck. He started to wade down 
 through the sand to meet me, but I waved him 
 back. Madame Toupin blew me a kiss in 
 greeting, so did a tall young woman beside her, 
 whose arm, as I drew nearer, I saw was about my 
 hostess's neck. I strained my eyes, but could 
 not recognize her, so I accepted the mark of 
 affection in the spirit in which it was sent, and 
 returned it with my best wishes to both. 
 
 The fourth figure in the group was that of an 
 elderly man who, as I came within speaking dis- 
 tance, ceased talking to the young woman 
 whose hair I now discovered to be blond
 
 98 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 and, thrusting his hands behind his back, 
 straightened, and awaited my arrival. 
 
 "How goes it, my old one?" cried Toupin, 
 gripping me heartily by both shoulders as I 
 leaped to the platform of the summer-house. 
 
 Toupin welcomed me with as much enthu- 
 siasm as if I had been rescued from the sea. 
 Madame Toupin's dark eyes were alight, her 
 saucy, nervous mouth opened in a catlike smile, 
 revealing her w r hite teeth, white as ivory in 
 contrast to her dark skin and hair. A welcoming 
 mood that I felt might change the next moment 
 to one of pique or jealousy. She gave me her 
 shapely little hand, and drew me firmly toward 
 her guests. 
 
 "But I know him!" laughed the one with the 
 golden hair, half closing her blue eyes mischiev- 
 ously as my hostess started to present me. 
 
 "Ho! Ho!" roared Toupin. "She is mar- 
 vellous Marcelle! She knows everybody. It 
 is true that, Twin? Eh, my little flirt?" 
 
 He chuckled, amused at the unexpected little 
 comedy; and, while I endeavoured to conceal my 
 puzzled embarrassment, the elderly man shot
 
 VILLA BY THE SEA 99 
 
 me a glance from beneath his bushy eyebrows, 
 disclosing a pair of small Machiavellian black 
 eyes, as hard and brilliant as polished onyx. 
 
 "Mademoiselle Valcourt, Monsieur Ville- 
 rocque," announced my hostess. 
 
 I bowed. 
 
 Monsieur Villerocque gravely closed a sen- 
 sual under lip, framed by a short, square beard, 
 bent stiffly, and again straightened this time 
 with a look of sullen suspicion. 
 
 "Bonjour, toil" exclaimed my unknown, with 
 the ease and frankness of a Montmartroise, and 
 that indescribable timbre of voice one hears in 
 late cafes. 
 
 ;< You see, I have a better memory than you," 
 she added, and her smile spread to join two 
 dimples on either side of her retrousse nose 
 the nose and mouth of a Parisian gamine. 
 
 The eyes of Villerocque scrutinized me now 
 with an intense and sinister brilliancy as I smiled 
 helplessly at the lady whose memory was better 
 than my own. 
 
 "Tiens!" she laughed. "You don't remem- 
 ber me? Never mind! Some day I shall tell
 
 100 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 you. In the meantime you may call me Mar- 
 celle. I hope your studio stove burns 
 better!" 
 
 I shrugged my shoulders helplessly in apology, 
 forcing my memory to recall where I had seen 
 that tall, graceful figure, its almost boyish sym- 
 metry asserting itself beneath her lace waist and 
 trim walking skirt. Then I lowered my gaze 
 to her feet, incased in a well-valeted pair of 
 tan Oxford ties American Oxford ties. Influ- 
 ence of the Quartier Latin! Ah, a glimmer 
 of light! Yes, surely! Then, like a flash, the 
 memory of my old friend Fremier crossed my 
 brain. Sapristi! Premier's model ! My model 
 Marcelle! 
 
 We would have embraced like good comrades 
 had I not again felt the eyes in ambush of Mon- 
 sieur Villerocque. 
 
 "Ah! So it is zat zee time goes by!" sighed 
 Marcelle, lapsing discreetly into her broken 
 English that Villerocque might not understand. 
 "Eight years, mon Dieu!" 
 
 Instinctively we drew apart from the rest, and 
 a flood of memories came back to us both.
 
 VILLA BY THE SEA 101 
 
 "And Fremier?" I ventured, as we reached 
 the edge of the platform. 
 
 She gazed at the sand, and did not reply. 
 
 "I have not seen him in years," I added, 
 "not since the time we used to feed you candy 
 to keep you quiet in a pose." 
 
 The smile of the gamine returned a gam- 
 ine grown up, to be sure, but whose good heart 
 was the same. She made me a little sign, and 
 we wisely turned back to the rest. 
 
 "My stove has a new top," I whispered rap- 
 idly, not any too sure we should find ourselves 
 alone again. "At Twenty-two Rue des Deux 
 Amis you will come soon to say bonjour?" 
 
 : 'Yes, my little one," she replied quickly. It 
 was just like her she, with her big heart 
 and turned with a laugh to Villerocque, who had 
 wheeled on his heel, and stood watching in a 
 sort of slumbering fury a colony of gulls below 
 him quarrelling over a heaving mass of seaweed 
 charged with rotten food. I saw Marcelle rest 
 her chin on his hard shoulder, her coral lips 
 strained in a smile as he muttered something to 
 her through his grizzled beard.
 
 102 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 " Marcelle and I were at the same convent to- 
 gether," Madame Toupin started to confide, as 
 Toupin slapped me soundly on the back. 
 
 "Eh, my old one!" he laughed heartily. "A 
 good glass of vermouth before dinner, hein?" 
 
 And he shouted to his butler, who had sud- 
 denly appeared on the stoop of the villa. 
 
 "Ah, so you know Marcelle," continued 
 Madame Toupin. " She is a good girl, Marcelle. 
 Une bonne fille, quoi?" she repeated, in an ac- 
 cent that again strangely reminded me of Mont- 
 martre, and its late cafes, especially the "quoi." 
 "And you knew Premier?" she added graciously, 
 regaining her married voice. 
 
 "For years we used to lunch together daily," 
 I declared, "at the Chien qui Danse Mar- 
 celle, and he, and I for two francs fifty; all 
 we could eat, and of the best. The patronne is 
 dead; it costs a gold piece to dine there now." 
 
 "Poor Fremier!" sighed my hostess, and 
 raised the eyes of a nun to mine. 
 
 "Dead?" I asked anxiously. 
 
 "Married, my dear. Bah! That was stupid 
 in Fremier."
 
 VILLA BY THE SEA 103 
 
 "Poor Marcelle, she loved him," I added, 
 with relief. "And the aged monsieur?" I ven- 
 tured. "Ville ViUe Ville- -" 
 
 "Villerocque." 
 
 "What is he," I inquired, "when he is agree- 
 able?" 
 
 "What you do not know him? Very well, 
 he is the famous Gaspard Villerocque. It is he 
 who wins so successfully the big divorce cases in 
 Paris an old friend of Paul's." 
 
 "Eh!" cried Toupin. "Our vermouth!" as 
 the yellow-waistcoated butler appeared with the 
 tray. 'You shall soon see my little niece 
 Lolotte. She is adorable, that infant." 
 
 The eyes of the nun became severe. 
 
 "Adorable!" roared Toupin bravely, and he 
 whispered in my ear: "She has gone off with a 
 young man to hunt for shells. Ah, an excel- 
 lent fellow young Jacques Latour. Lotte ! 
 Lotte!" he shouted lustily across the dunes. 
 
 There came in answer a faint halloo from be- 
 yond a distant bank of sand. 
 
 "Et voila!" cried Toupin rubbing his Hands 
 with satisfaction. "What did I tell you?" he
 
 104 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 said, turning to his wife. "You see, they are 
 safe, my dearest." 
 
 The eyes of the nun flashed in reply. 
 
 "Lotte is nothing but a mere child," explained 
 madame, with a look of ill -disguised disapproval. 
 " You are quite crazy, Paul, to have let them go 
 off alone. It is monstrous." 
 
 "Eh, bien, it is 'monstrous,'" laughed Tou- 
 pin. "You see it is monstrous, my old one. 
 Et voila!" And he shrugged his shoulders and 
 chuckled as Madame Toupin's anger rose. 
 
 "But since he is an excellent fellow ' 
 
 I interposed, in the young man's behalf. 
 
 "Lotte is barely seventeen!" snapped Ma- 
 dame. "A child! Quoi? Bah! All you men 
 are alike. When I was seventeen, Monsieur," 
 and her voice sank to a murmur, "I can tell you 
 I was not allowed to promenade with a young 
 man alone." 
 
 "When you were seventeen," I thought to 
 myself, as we gathered about the table in the 
 summer-house, and raised our glasses as the sun 
 burned down to its rim back of a desert of mol- 
 ten copper, "when you were seventeen I am
 
 VILLA BY THE SEA 105 
 
 pretty firmly convinced you were telling the 
 story of your life to any young man you chanced 
 to meet around the Place Blanche. Penses tu?" 
 
 There was a subtle philosophy in Toupin's 
 immaterial gayety which I was just beginning to 
 divine the reason of. 
 
 Villerocque stood at my elbow. He drained 
 his glass in noisy gulps, setting it back method- 
 ically on the table, smacked his lips thrice, and 
 cleared his grizzled throat while I lay about 
 me for something to say to him to break the 
 ice, as it were, that lay between myself and this 
 hard old man, whose grim talent had won a 
 fortune in separating forever those who had 
 once loved. Did he love Marcelle, I wondered, 
 or had the vicissitudes of life forced my good 
 Marcelle of old to put up with his boorish in- 
 solence? There emanated from this social exe- 
 cutioner a personality born of relentless cruelty, 
 of jealousy, and greed, keen-edged by a brain of 
 lightning shrewdness and activity. 
 
 "The air is delicious to-night," I ventured, 
 breaking the awkward silence between us. 
 
 "Ah! You find it so?" he grumbled, slowly
 
 106 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 turning his head and his glittering eyes to 
 mine. 
 
 "Rare and stimulating," I continued, with 
 courage. "No microbes here, eh?" I laughed. 
 "No wonder that injections of common sea 
 water have been discovered to be one of the 
 most powerful stimulants known to prolong life 
 in extreme cases of exhaustion." 
 
 "And lapse of memory," he snarled, with the 
 vestige of a leer, the episode of my meeting 
 with Marcelle still rankling within him. 
 
 "Memories of the heart, Monsieur," I re- 
 turned quietly, "are of all the most enduring." 
 
 There rose to the peculiar pallor of his leaden 
 cheeks a little blood, that crept up and settled in 
 the lobes of his coarse ears as the cool voice of a 
 young girl made me turn. 
 
 She came up over the crest of the dunes, fol- 
 lowed by none other than the prince himself - 
 a young, clean-cut, sunburned prince in knicker- 
 bockers, who by preference chose the tracks in 
 the running sand her little feet had made, and 
 graciously let her win the race. And now he 
 nimbly sprang before her, for his little princess
 
 VILLA BY THE SEA 107 
 
 was quite out of breath, and, putting out his 
 hand, he pulled her easily up until she stood safe 
 on the platform of the summer-house, for she 
 was slight, and nearly seventeen. 
 
 Then she blushed, which was quite as natural 
 with her as breathing, and nodded a flustered 
 little attempt at a bow, and brushed back from 
 the pure oval of her face a stray wisp from her 
 auburn hair that the sea breeze sent again 
 across her clear brown eyes eyes as soft and 
 clear as her fresh young skin, which was as pink 
 and white as a tea rose. 
 
 No wonder Toupin had declared she was 
 "adorable." She was, and in contrast to her, 
 the group of seasoned, worldly debris of hu- 
 manity about the table seemed leathery, and 
 old, and sodden. 
 
 "Hurry, my little sparrow," exclaimed Ma- 
 dame Toupin sweetly, though her dark eyes were 
 drinking in the young man. 
 
 "A thousand pardons, dear Madame," apolo- 
 gized Latour, "if we have kept you waiting! It 
 was my fault, I assure you." 
 
 She laid her hand upon his arm.
 
 108 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "You are forgiven," she said, looking straight 
 into his eyes, and for an instant I saw her dark 
 lashes hah* close. 
 
 "We went nearly to the point," explained 
 Lotte. She slipped shyly into a chair, still out of 
 breath, brushing thedry sand from her white frock. 
 
 I could study her at my ease now her child- 
 like beauty, her delicate features in repose, and 
 the sensitive, girlish mouth, whose innocent 
 lips were rosier, and needed neither the crimson 
 pomade of Madame Toupin nor the stick of 
 coral of Marcelle's to heighten their colour; and 
 we were very soon the best of friends, and she 
 told me eagerly how very far they had gone. 
 
 :< You know the wreck?" she asked eagerly. 
 
 "Ah, no! I do not," I had to confess. 
 
 "But you know the mussel rocks?" 
 ' Yes, yes the mussel rocks I do." 
 
 "Well, a long, long way beyond that. And 
 you know," she confided seriously, "it is quite 
 dangerous, they say, on account of the quick- 
 sand." But went on that neither Monsieur 
 Latour nor she had found any, happily, and that 
 her feet were not as wet as they looked, for they
 
 VILLA BY THE SEA 109 
 
 had gone nearly all the way by the mussel rocks, 
 at which the clever ears of Madame Toupin 
 overheard, and she screamed for her maid, 
 though young Latour and Marcelle assured her 
 they were dry, at which Villerocque disagreed, 
 and I with him. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " roared Toupin. "At Lotte's age 
 no one ever caught cold." 
 
 Yet, in spite of it, Therese, the maid, came 
 running with dry shoes and stockings for made- 
 moiselle. And Lotte put them on with the 
 skill of unconscious innocence, much to Ville- 
 rocque's interest as he glanced at her little feet, 
 rosy with the chill of the sea, and as we con- 
 tinued to discuss the various dangers of quick- 
 sands, Lotte and I, and whether golf was hard 
 to learn, and if I really thought to-morrow would 
 rain. 
 
 I saw that this child's merriment was a verit- 
 able tour deforce. Had I known fully then what 
 was in her heart, and had the young man known ! 
 But he did not how could he have known? 
 They had been gone for two hours, and she had 
 not dared during all that time to look frankly
 
 110 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 into his eyes, and he, in the good sense of his 
 twenty-five years, had been timid in what he 
 said, and still more careful in what he did, being 
 a well-bred young Frenchman, and wise in his 
 generation at ease with the demi-monde, and 
 the personification of shyness and discretion be- 
 fore a pure young girl. 
 
 I had a right in liking young Latour; and 
 Madame Toupin had not, for I had seen her 
 eyes devour him, and she grew irritable as she 
 refilled his glass of Porto under that strange 
 nervousness of a woman in love who cleverly 
 grasps every stolen chance to assert it, and suffers 
 under the hopelessness of indifference. 
 
 If Latour saw it, not a gesture or a look of his 
 revealed it. More likely he had only a vague 
 inkling of the fact. It is often thus that young 
 men in the face of love are wholly unconscious 
 of it. This indifference was torture to Madame 
 Toupin. Despite her coolness before others, 
 you saw the truth struggling about the corners 
 of her tense, nervous mouth tense now even 
 when she smiled. 
 
 If Toupin saw it he ignored it evidently
 
 VILLA BY THE SEA 111 
 
 Monsieur Jacques Latour was not the first 
 young man Madame Toupin had fallen in love 
 with. If it was plain enough to Villerocque he 
 kept it shrewdly to himself, saving it, as he did 
 a valuable point in a case, until the moment 
 came when he could launch it to advantage. 
 As for Marcelle, she was too much of a bonne 
 file to have betrayed any one, much less an old 
 comrade of her convent days. 
 
 Night was setting as we left the summer- 
 house and strolled back to the Villa Rose. 
 Something in Villerocque's attitude made me let 
 the rest go ahead. I turned slightly, and saw 
 he was waiting for Lotte, who had forgotten her 
 shells. Presently she joined him. The night 
 wind had sprung up, but evidently Villerocque 
 had misjudged its direction, for I could hear his 
 hard, low voice far clearer than he dreamed. 
 His short remark to the little niece made me 
 catch my breath. 
 
 "You are well taken, my little one," said he. 
 "You are hopelessly in love." 
 
 Had he struck the child across the face he 
 could not have been more brutal. Her lithe
 
 112 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 figure seemed to stop and sway for an instant. 
 Then I saw the agonized look in her dear, brown 
 eyes a look of positive terror and without 
 a word to him she ran swiftly ahead of us into 
 the Villa Rose, and slammed the door. 
 
 He might as well have said: 'You are a 
 criminal. There is nothing that can save you. 
 You had better confess. I shall speak to the 
 judge to give you a light sentence." 
 
 I believe I grew pale I do not know; I only 
 know that I felt the anger leap within me, and 
 that with it came a peculiar chill and the rush 
 of a sudden strength, strong enough to have 
 strangled him; then I pulled myself together, 
 and passed up the ugly little stoop of the Villa 
 Rose with its guests. 
 
 During dinner that night Madame Toupin 
 suffered from an "excruciating'* headache, 
 which won our sincere sympathy ; and she smiled 
 bravely, and said: "It is nothing, and will 
 pass," while we ate heartily, and listened to the 
 easy argot of Marcelle. Frank enough speech 
 it was, too, for that good girl has a habit of say- 
 ing anything that enters her blond head, and it
 
 VILLA BY THE SEA 113 
 
 was gay enough to-night to have satisfied any 
 seasoned bohemian, and well larded with "Pense 
 tu's" and "Fiche moi a la paix!" and similar 
 indelicate exclamations from Montmartre, in- 
 terrupted now and then by the common satire 
 of Villerocque, whose acrid jokes Toupin, with 
 his red napkin stuffed in the side of his neck to 
 give his throat fair play, roared over, and young 
 Latour submitted to with his best manners, 
 though I saw him now and then wince to him- 
 self. 
 
 He should have known the Toupin household 
 better; nothing that was said there ever sur- 
 prised the butler or myself, and as for Lotte 
 well, a jeune fitte who is permitted to come to 
 table in France must accept the conversation 
 as she finds it. 
 
 It was nearly ten o'clock when we finished 
 dinner, and settled down over our cigarettes 
 and coffee for a game of cards. Then up came 
 the moon silver, flooding the heavy sea with 
 its mysterious light and Madame Toupin' s 
 headache grew rapidly better. Skilfully and 
 naturally she sent the little sparrow to bed,
 
 114 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 chose a fur wrap of gray squirrel, the same silver- 
 gray as the beach in the moonlight, and, having 
 appropriated young Latour, they went out to- 
 gether into the crisp air, away from the gaudy, 
 stuffy little salon with its snapping cards. 
 
 In less than a quarter of an hour they were 
 back, Latour enthusiastic over the beauty of 
 Bel- Air in the moonlight, the hostess of the Villa 
 Rose looking ten years older beneath a smile and 
 a dab of rouge. 
 
 It was late when the genial laugh of my host, 
 the grunts of Villerocque, as he grimly studied 
 the hands dealt him, and the good humour of 
 Marcelle subsided, and we rose from the card 
 table. 
 
 "Listen, my children!" announced Toupin, 
 as he rattled the pack into its box. 'To- 
 morrow ah, you shall see ! Grand fete ! 
 Prodigious fete!" he chuckled. "My fete! 
 We'll lunch at the Mere Thenard's, at Bonne- 
 ville; she cooks a lobster that ah, my dears 
 that is a lobster!" And he blew a kiss to 
 the ceiling. "Then on to the Pavillion Dore for 
 dinner. There is a piano we shall dance.
 
 VILLA BY THE SEA 115 
 
 Tra ! la ! la ! Eh, my little flirt ? What say you, 
 hein?" And he began to waltz. 
 
 "That * glues,' my old one!" exclaimed Mar- 
 celle, unconscious of the withering look of dis- 
 approval from her hostess. 
 
 "Charmed!" put in Latour. 
 
 Madame Toupin's small mouth closed tight. 
 
 "Eh, bien, my good one!" leered Villerocque, 
 and shrugged his shoulders hi acceptance. 
 
 As I passed up the varnished stairs to bed 
 that night, I stopped to gaze out of a tiny win- 
 dow on the landing. Down by the white gate 
 stood Cosette, thinking, in the moonlight, and 
 I hoped and prayed the two automobiles would 
 be in running order on the morrow. 
 
 I had hardly closed the door of my bedroom 
 when a voice called my name from without. I 
 opened my window. 
 
 "A letter for monsieur!" shouted a bare- 
 footed fisherboy. 
 
 "Forme?" 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur. The postman, Monsieur 
 Jacquet, forgot to bring it. It is marked * im- 
 portant.' Monsieur Jacquet is drunk, Monsieur,
 
 116 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 at the hotel. Monsieur will understand, since 
 Monsieur Jacquet is drunk!" 
 
 "Perfectly, my brave one, perfectly! Slip it 
 under the door. I'll be down." 
 
 And I dropped him a ten-sou piece. He 
 doffed his fishing cap, slipped the letter under 
 the front door, and was gone in the moonlight. 
 
 A moment later I read the following from my 
 friend Delacour, at the Cheval Blanc: 
 
 Come back at once. American here wants to buy one 
 of your pictures. Sale looks certain, but he insists on 
 your showing him where it was painted or we would have 
 turned the trick for you ourselves, as we need the money. 
 Are doing our best to hold him until you get here. 
 
 "Hurrah!" I whispered. 
 
 I felt happy, and already rich. An American 
 dropped from the sky a miracle a gilded 
 dream. I mused, elated over this incredible 
 piece of good news, for never in the history of 
 the Cheval Blanc had its like happened before. 
 Good old Delacour, and the rest! 
 
 I sprang up the varnished stairs, and rapped 
 gently at Toupin's door to offer my excuses for 
 the morrow.
 
 VILLA BY THE SEA 117 
 
 Three days later, the car of a certain Ameri- 
 can whom the crowd at the Cheval Blanc had 
 held captive in return for his generosity, de- 
 posited me at the white gate of the Villa Rose. 
 Not a soul was in sight. The summer-house was 
 deserted. They were gone, evidently, I thought, 
 on some all-day fete. I trudged up through the 
 sand, gained the ugly stoop, entered the Tou- 
 pins' household by way of the deserted dining 
 room, and caught sight of Marcelle and Toupin 
 in the salon, talking earnestly together. So en- 
 grossed were they that they were unaware of 
 my arrival. 
 
 "Eh, bien!" I cried. "I'm back!" 
 
 Marcelle looked up with a naive smile, and 
 moved toward me, with her hands outstretched 
 to greet me. Toupin rose out of an armchair 
 at the sound of my voice. 
 
 "Tiens!" he exclaimed, smiling, as he rose. 
 
 "What has happened?" I ventured, puzzled 
 at their strangely subdued manner, for both 
 seemed to have lost their usual breezy geniality. 
 
 Toupin lifted his arms in a gesture that in- 
 dicated he had nothing to say.
 
 118 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "Happened, my little one! Ah! la! la!" be- 
 gan Marcelle, and likewise raised her hands. 
 
 "Marcelle will explain," exclaimed Toupin, 
 and grinned. 
 
 "Listen, my little wolf!" began Marcelle. 
 "It is fortunate, my rabbit, you were not here. 
 Did you sell your picture?" 
 
 "Yes," said I. "But never mind that. Is 
 anybody hurt? 111? What the devil has hap- 
 pened? Where's madame?" 
 
 Marcelle pointed to the ceiling. 
 
 "In bed!" 
 
 "Nothing grave, I hope!" 
 
 "Ill, in bed!" she repeated, with the vestige 
 of a smile. 
 
 "And Villerocque?" 
 
 "Gone! Ah! la! la! If you think he went 
 pleasantly, cet animal la! In a fury! If you 
 think it gay to argue seven hours with a brute 
 like that, who never lets you explain anything. 
 Ah, zut, alors! I've got enough of Villerocque. 
 He's gone to Paris. All the better! He can 
 stay there. It is good you did not remain. It 
 would have given you a headache. That old
 
 VILLA BY THE SEA 119 
 
 bull roaring out his opinions, as if any one cared 
 a sou for his sacre opinions. But when he began 
 to attack that child, very well, I showed him my 
 claws. Parbleu! It is not a sin to be in love, is 
 it? It is not a reason because Lotte is seven- 
 teen that she cannot love." 
 
 Her voice rose vibrantly, Toupin letting her 
 continue, with a shrug of approval. 
 
 "Very well, when one is seventeen one has a 
 right to love whom they please. I began earlier 
 than that I did. Very well, it is done. I 
 tell you, he could not frighten Latour. Latour 
 told him to mind his own business! That if he 
 had asked Lotte to marry him it was their affair, 
 not his. And if he wanted to be further en- 
 lightened on the subject he would send his sec- 
 onds to him any hour he wished. Voila! 
 That's what he told him. Latour is an excellent 
 swordsman. Lotte is an orphan. Paul is her 
 guardian eh, bien! Paul gave his consent to 
 their marriage." 
 
 "Bravo!" I cried, and wrung Toupin's hand. 
 
 "Et vail&l" chuckled Toupin. "It's done. 
 Latour left this morning to tell his mother.
 
 120 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "Done!" he went on good-naturedly. "Why 
 not? Latour is an excellent fellow, and he 
 loves her. My wife is furious. Bah! Louise 
 will get over it. It is not every day we can 
 marry a little niece, parbleu! Eh, my little flirt ? ' ' 
 And he patted Marcelle's cheek. 
 
 "Penses tu, my old one!" replied Marcelle. 
 
 Madame Toupin did not appear at dinner. 
 Lotte sat beside me, grave, happy, radiant, 
 and twice she called him Jacques, quite as if 
 she had always called him Jacques, and we 
 filled our glasses to the little niece, and drank her 
 health in the good wine, and embraced her on 
 both cheeks Toupin, and Marcelle, and I. 
 
 A year has passed. The Villa Rose is no 
 longer Toupin's. Within a week after Lotte's 
 engagement it stood stark and empty on the 
 dunes, and a sign on the white gate read: 
 " Villa clLouer." 
 
 There had been an upheaval in the Toupin 
 household. A domestic storm had raged within 
 the Villa Rose the like of which it had never 
 experienced. It was the culmination of Ma-
 
 VILLA BY THE SEA 121 
 
 dame Toupin's love affairs, as far as that 
 indulgent philosopher Toupin was concerned. 
 Madame Toupin must have lost her head to 
 have chosen the summer-house for a rendezvous 
 with a certain young lieutenant. It seems that 
 Toupin chanced to pass at the very moment the 
 moon shone clear of its scudding clouds, and he 
 stood there quietly and saw them embrace 
 again and again. 
 
 " Et voila!" he chuckled to himself, and passed 
 on. 
 
 It was the next day that the domestic storm 
 broke, and Therese, the maid, began packing. 
 The able Villerocque won his case with his usual 
 masterful summing up, and the divorce was 
 given in Toupin's favour. 
 
 Sapristi! Had Villerocque only known, but 
 how could he have? 
 
 It was only the other day that I received the 
 following : 
 
 Monsieur Auguste Toupin, director of the chamber of 
 agriculture, has the honour to invite you to assist at the 
 marriage of his son, Paul Hippolyte Toupin, ex-deputy
 
 122 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 officer of the Legion of Honor, with Mademoiselle Mar- 
 celle Valcourt, which will be held at Paris the third of 
 October, nineteen-ten, at the mayoralty of the Sixteenth 
 Arrondissement 
 
 / pass that scoundrel Villerocque often as he prowls along 
 the Boulevard. I saw him only last week. Twice he shot 
 me a sour glance of recognition. We have long since, how- 
 ever, ceased to lift our hats to one another. I have a positive 
 disgust for this diabolical old rogue. 
 
 The Villa Rose is still to let. F. B. S.
 
 CHAPTER FOUR 
 BY THE GRACE OF ALLAH
 
 CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 BY THE GRACE OF ALLAH 
 
 THE awning shading the long terrace of the 
 Grande Taverne was being slowly raised, 
 as the dying sun burned its way to bed back of 
 the cool green trees of the Luxembourg Gardens, 
 leaving this paradise of students and their 
 sweethearts in the dusk and mystery of the soft 
 spring twilight. A twilight under the spell of 
 which the heart beat quick; a twilight in which 
 murmured words were stifled by kisses given 
 and not stolen; a twilight keen with the savage 
 fragrance of the oozing ground, of stirring sap 
 
 125
 
 126 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 and sturdy buds bursting their bonds, and sweet 
 with the perfume of the horse-chestnut blossoms 
 and the lilacs a fragrance of growing things 
 that filled one's lungs with the drug of spring, 
 and stirred one's blood like a draught of old wine. 
 Beneath this rare perfume of spring the night 
 air lay soft, and the gentle breeze of evening 
 stirring the topmost leaves of the towering trees, 
 in which the fat, cooing pigeons were settling 
 for the night, wafted this fragrance of the old 
 gardens across the asphalted square, with its 
 single fountain spraying the backs of a lazy 
 school of goldfish, and sent it on to mingle with 
 the more worldly perfumes that lurked beneath 
 the slowly rising awning the clean scent of 
 freshly mixed absinthes, of lemons squeezed upon 
 cracked ice, of stray blue whiffs from cigarettes, 
 and those subtler perfumes from hidden sachets 
 tucked somewhere within dainty corsages fresh 
 from the washerwoman, and through whose lace 
 interstices gleamed flesh that was young, and 
 firm, and fair, and now and then the ends of a 
 narrow ribbon of pink, or of blue to match her 
 eyes.
 
 BY THE GRACE OF ALLAH 1*7 
 
 It was spring, and the world that lay beyond 
 the Latin Quarter counted but vaguely, like a 
 distant land one had never seen. 
 
 To be young and carefree, with a few francs 
 still in one's pocket; to have youth, I say, and 
 to turn the big steel key in the worn lock of one's 
 studio door at sundown and go forth as I've done 
 in my own studio in the Rue des Deux Amis for 
 years where? Ah, we never knew; but across 
 the gardens of the Luxembourg, and to the ter- 
 race of the Grande Taverne first, where all of 
 we bohemians, struggling daily in paint or in 
 clay, met at sundown for our aperitif, and then 
 to dine modestly in the gay old tavern, and to 
 let the night bring whatever adventure it had 
 not provided ah, that was living ! 
 
 We were like one big family: Jean and Mar- 
 celle, Yvonne and Gaston, La Petite Amelie, 
 Raoul, Valdin and Rose Javet, Marie Celeste, 
 Claudine, Henriette, Suzanne, and so many 
 more who came to the terrace nightly. 
 
 "Bonjourl Cava?" 
 
 "Ettaif" 
 
 How many of these cheery greetings came
 
 128 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 from brave little hearts, from which emanated 
 an esprit a spirit of camaraderie as sincere 
 as a religion. They were honest, for they never 
 stole. They were brave, for they never de- 
 manded. They were discreet, with that inborn 
 sense of discretion and contentment which 
 Anglo-Saxon women are ignorant of. They 
 possessed nothing, yet they gave with an un- 
 selfish generosity unknown to the rich. They 
 were proud not of themselves, but of any 
 good fortune that came to those whom they 
 loved. 
 
 When Raoul obtained an honourable mention 
 for his salon picture, Celeste's pride was a 
 revelation, and they lived to love and be loved 
 in turn. 
 
 To have one say: "She is a good comrade," 
 meant more to them than to say: "She is a 
 princess." 
 
 She had entered the Taverne an hour before 
 any of us had reached the terrace this evening 
 in spring. 
 
 A total stranger, even to that veteran gar- 
 c/w de cafe, Francois, whose memory was colos-
 
 BY THE GRACE OF ALLAH 129 
 
 sal. She made a strange little figure, sitting 
 alone, before the latest copy of "Le Rire" and 
 a coffee cream. 
 
 In the corner she had chosen, it was nearly 
 dark, for the cavernous old room within, with 
 its gilded ceiling, was never lighted until its 
 tables began to fill for dinner; yet, from where I 
 sat on the terrace, close to the open window, I 
 could see her plainly. There is a certain lumi- 
 nosity about beauty which lends a distinction 
 to its details in shadow. 
 
 She was small the figure of a child rounded 
 into womanhood, that point of exquisite de- 
 velopment which only occurs once in a lifetime. 
 There was about her whole person an air of grace, 
 of gentleness and contentment. Neither was 
 she ill at ease, for she raised her dark eyes 
 calmly now and then toward the open door, 
 and turned the gay pages of "Le Rire 9 ' with her 
 small, dimpled hands, smiling to herself with 
 the eagerness of a child devouring a picture 
 book. 
 
 I noticed, too, that her face was of that pure 
 oval one sees in Oriental women, and that its
 
 130 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 tint was olive, and of a rare translucence. 
 When she smiled, two little dimples appeared 
 close to her small mouth, which, when open, 
 revealed her pearly teeth. Her hair, which 
 she wore in a bandeau neatly drawn over the 
 tips of her little ears, was of a soft, dark brown, 
 deeper than auburn, and shaded by a simple hat 
 of the same black velvet as her dress, which was 
 perfectly plain, and buttoned with many little 
 buttons down the front all the way down, I 
 could see, to her small feet, which did not quite 
 reach the floor. The same velvet had served, 
 too, to make an old-fashioned reticule which lay 
 upon the table beside her gloves, trimmed at 
 the wrists with a narrow binding of the same 
 cloth. What more could the velvet have done? 
 Had she not used every vestige of it wisely and 
 well? 
 
 One feels a certain respect before such charm- 
 ing economy. It seemed to reveal to me some- 
 thing of her character. Hah* an hour passed, 
 every minute of which I fully expected some one 
 luckier than myself would arrive and offer his 
 apologies for his lateness. Still no one came,
 
 BY THE GRACE OF ALLAH 131 
 
 and she being well hidden from the gaze of the 
 terrace, few even were aware of her presence. 
 
 An irresistible desire seized me to speak to her 
 - this strange little olive beauty ! Her small 
 hands were a delight to watch they and the 
 pure contour of her features and yet I dared 
 not move. We bohemians are, either by nature 
 or experience, more discreet in speaking to a 
 girl alone than are many others. 
 
 I motioned to Frangois. It seems she had 
 arrived over two hours ago, and only addressed 
 him with the single word, "Ca/e," which she 
 pronounced with a strange accent. Cream, he 
 had ventured, pointing to the spout of the coffee- 
 pot's mate, and she had nodded. 
 
 "Then I brought madame ( Le Hire?" added 
 this veteran waiter. "It is better when ladies 
 who are not of the Taverne wish to be alone." 
 
 He had barely finished speaking when she 
 raised her head, and, to my surprise, our eyes 
 met she meeting my gaze steadily. She 
 did not smile, just looked at me with a certain 
 childlike curiosity in which there were both con- 
 fidence and respect. I could resist no longer.
 
 132 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 I got up, descended the three steps into the 
 Taverne, and, crossing to her corner, stood be- 
 fore her, and lifted my hat. 
 
 "Forgive me," I said; "will you be good 
 enough to pose for me? A thousand pardons. 
 You are alone, is it not so? . And for so long - 
 
 and a stranger ' These stupid, tactless 
 
 sentences rushed from me with hurried unreason- 
 ing, but, to my joy, she looked up and smiled - 
 ah, such a gentle smile! I w T aited for her to 
 speak. The clear olive of her cheeks flushed a 
 little; then she shrugged her shoulders helplessly. 
 
 Sapristi! She could not speak a word of 
 French, and, as I sat down on the worn 
 leather seat beside her, she clasped her little 
 hands in her velvet lap; but I saw by the look in 
 her eyes she was content, for she sighed. 
 
 "Forgive me," I said, in English; but she 
 shook her head, and then I halted and ventured 
 again, this time in the few words of Italian I 
 had picked up; then in German, and finally in 
 my easier smattering of Hungarian. Slowly 
 her face became radiant. 
 
 " Egen! Egen!" she exclaimed, and clapped
 
 BY THE GRACE OF ALLAH 133 
 
 her hands. "Roumelie! Roumelie!" she said, in 
 the loveliest voice cool, and low, and gentle 
 - and she pointed out of the window over the 
 towering trees in the possible direction of her 
 native land. 
 
 The Taverne now blazed up in light, rapidly 
 the tables filled, and every furtive eye in the 
 room was upon us. Some of them with ill- 
 disguised jealousy, especially two young archi- 
 tects from Boston, of irreproachable Parisian 
 conduct, Harvard manners, and a Beacon Street 
 accent. But Raoul and Valdin only smiled, 
 and lifted their hands in congratulation. And 
 then an idea occurred to me, and I beckoned 
 to Rose Javet to join us, for I knew my little 
 lady of the velvet gown would be safe with 
 her during my absence that big, strong 
 blonde, with her ready wit and her heart of 
 gold. 
 
 "Eh bien, my old one, you're in luck! Mon 
 Dieu, but she is beautiful!" exclaimed Rose, 
 and not many women compliment another in 
 the same Taverne. As I started to rise, my 
 little lady of the velvet gown looked at me
 
 154 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 pleadingly, so strangely, as if I were her master 
 and she was awaiting my bidding. 
 
 "I shall be back," I explained, in Hungarian; 
 "we shall dine." And after I had repeated it 
 slowly twice she understood, and smiled con- 
 tentedly, murmuring something in her own 
 tongue, and inclining her head in a deferential 
 little bow. And so I left them together, and 
 went in search of her language to the musty 
 shop of Tranchard, the old librarian, whose 
 stock was in continual disorder, three doors 
 above. 
 
 Tranchard, who reads everything an inch from 
 the page, was bent over the evening paper, 
 scanning it microscopically by the aid of a 
 shadeless kerosene lamp, placed on a packing 
 box in the middle of two heaps of second-hand 
 knowledge. 
 
 "Eh, Monsieur Tranchard!" I cried, as I 
 entered. " Have you by chance among this muss 
 of yours a phrase book in French and Roume- 
 lian?" 
 
 The old man looked up solemnly, and re- 
 moved his spectacles.
 
 BY THE GRACE OF ALLAH 135 
 
 "Eh voilal Monsieur Pierre, an idea, and 
 at this hour! Ah, my poor Monsieur, a phrase 
 book in the language of Roumelie," he wheezed. 
 "Eh, eh ! Of Roumelie of Rou - -" 
 
 He got up stiffly, and his gaunt hands searched 
 along a dusty shelf packed with pamphlets. 
 
 " You have no idea, my good Tranchard," I 
 explained, by way of encouragement, "how 
 badly you can need a phrase book in French 
 and Roumelian when you need it." 
 
 "You are going on a voyage?" he questioned, 
 turning slowly from his search, and scrutinizing 
 me wearily over his spectacles. 
 
 14 Yes!" I cried enthusiastically. "A long 
 voyage, to the land called Happiness, by way of 
 the road of the Two Hearts. A swift road, Pere 
 Tranchard, for chance lends you a hand as 
 guide, and there is no lagging with chance, once 
 having grasped it. Make haste, my good Tran- 
 chard. Search! Search! Surely a Roume- 
 lian student has sold you something. Hurry, 
 for I start to-night!" 
 
 "Eh! Eh!" he wheezed, still regarding me 
 queerly, his hand still on the shelf. "When I
 
 136 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 have one absinthe, I stop, my good Monsieur 
 Pierre." 
 
 But I let him think what he chose. I saw 
 that he was tugging at something thin and pink, 
 wedged between a dusty dozen, cinched with a 
 string. 
 
 Presently he snatched it out. 
 
 "Had I not a good memory? " said he. "And 
 at this hour! Parbleu! Four sous to you," he 
 added, "since, between you and me, I believe 
 you are either drunk or crazy!" 
 
 "Neither, my excellent friend in need," I 
 replied, and wrung the hand that had searched 
 so diligently, and found our language, mated 
 so nicely side by side, in just the sentences we 
 should need. Indeed, there were too many - 
 we should never need them all. Many seemed 
 superfluous as I read by the glittering Taverne 
 lights on my way back to my little lady of the 
 velvet gown. 
 
 I love We love 
 
 Thou lovest You love 
 
 He loves They love 
 
 And, of course, the very words for "The lob-
 
 BY THE GRACE OF ALLAH 137 
 
 ster of my uncle," and "The white wine of my 
 aunt." 
 
 The spring weeks, filled with their delicious 
 warmth, went by one after another, each new 
 morning a joy to be alive in. Mornings that 
 found us together in the gardens of the Luxem- 
 bourg, beside the stagnant fountain of the Medi- 
 cis, the pink phrase book between us, her hand 
 in mine that exquisite little hand, that I loved 
 to turn over and over, to enjoy with my eyes 
 as one would a precious ivory. And she learned 
 quickly from the pink book, which, indeed, we 
 were never without, and which she carried for 
 safe-keeping in the velvet reticule in which lay 
 all manner of strange things the certificate 
 of her birth, a spool of black silk, and a needle, 
 to give first aid to the injured velvet gown, and 
 a small silver box of Oriental design, evidently 
 very old, studded with turquoises, and secreting 
 a vial of attar of roses, which she now and then 
 touched to the lobes of her little ears. 
 
 She told me everything, over and over again, 
 from the beginning; of her quick decision that
 
 138 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 day in Philippopoli to leave him, of his ungov- 
 ernable temper, of her letter to her family, and 
 the one she left for him, sending it to his bar- 
 racks at the hour of his inspection of his regi- 
 ment, an hour when he could not follow her 
 and of her flight to Paris with the little money 
 she had so patiently saved. 
 
 "Listen, Pierre, my beloved: There is no 
 anger in me," she would repeat. "Thou hast 
 never seen me angry." 
 
 "But in thy country surely thou hast a right 
 to love whom thou wilt?" I declared. 
 
 "We must obey," she returned simply. "One 
 must serve faithfully one's master. When thou 
 art chosen, thou must follow. It was in one of 
 his books that I read of Paris, that one could be 
 free there, to be chosen, and be loved, not as a 
 slave. And so, as thou knowest, it was to the 
 big cafe that I had heard him tell of, that I came 
 first after the train, and waited and thou." 
 
 Her dark eyes filled brilliantly, but she was 
 smiling as she drew my cheek to her own. 
 
 "Allah is good," she whispered. 
 
 The pink book slipped and fell to the ground,
 
 BY THE GRACE OF ALLAH 139 
 
 and a fat pigeon, incensed at being disturbed 
 from the gravel, thrashed up through the 
 feathery green leaves above us to quarrel with 
 his wife. 
 
 There is an end to all happiness. It is the 
 heavy price we pay, and it is called The End. 
 There is no torture conceived by the human 
 mind that can equal it, since it is filled with 
 hopelessness, and the intensity of its pain is 
 made keener by separation. The only thing 
 The End lacks is death. Some of us accept the 
 latter eagerly, since death under these conditions 
 seems to assume the dignity of a true friend. 
 
 My uncle had insisted on this voyage of mine 
 to America his reasons, his interest, a young 
 active man to manage his interests from afar. 
 At his age, he should have been content with his 
 chateau in Normandy, and his shooting. My 
 "welfare!" Bon Dieu, can they not invent? 
 My "career!" Ah, yes, my career what did 
 I care for my career? The pressure came 
 heavily from all sides, with that greased inge- 
 nuity of a combined family. It is amazing how
 
 140 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 we crumple up and accede when one's own blood 
 calls. 
 
 There is no reason in it, neither would I have 
 crumbled up or acceded had it not been for her. 
 
 "It is the wish of thy people," she said. 
 "Have I not loved thee well? I will not have 
 it said of thee thou art not brave. Thou wilt 
 come back listen, Pierre back to me, for 
 thou art in my heart forever." 
 
 That is what she said, and we cried together 
 through our last dinner at the "big cafe." Yet 
 she was braver than I, for the one who stays 
 and waits is always the bravest and it was to 
 Rose Javet that I turned this time in my hour 
 of need. 
 
 "Heart! You speak of heart!" Rose is so 
 poor, for she is very independent, and cares for 
 none save her old friends. 
 
 "You will do as you promise, Rose?" I 
 went on, with hurried insistence, during the few 
 brief moments we were alone that last evening 
 after dinner. 
 
 'Yes, my old one," she said, and the look in her 
 honest blue eyes was as good as her sworn bond.
 
 BY THE GRACE OF ALLAH 141 
 
 "You will see that she dresses warmly, Rose, 
 and not be reckless like the rest, and wear some 
 stupid decollete mode in winter. A good fire 
 at your home, the good soup at night. Here, if 
 you are with her, she will be well in the little 
 room off yours, where the sun shines." 
 "Yes, my little one." 
 "Rose, I love her." 
 "Yes, my little one; I know." 
 "There will be no one else, Rose?" 
 "No, my old one; there will be no one else." 
 And at the train which left the Gare St. 
 Lazare the next morning, she whom I was leav- 
 ing was seized with trembling, but she did not 
 cry. 
 
 Two years passed two years in which I did 
 my duty by my uncle, and in which her letters 
 made my exile in America all the harder, for 
 they were faithful, long letters, that told me of 
 her daily life, of all that happened in and around 
 the old Taverne. Letters full of the sameness 
 of devotion and the serious philosophy of a child. 
 She was still with Rose Javet, and worked for
 
 142 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 a modiste in the Rue de Seine during the months 
 when the little modiste needed an extra hand; 
 and when the work grew slack, she fashioned 
 hats for her friends of the big cafe out of 
 nothing, a remnant, a ribbon, and generally the 
 same feather, which her dimpled hands knew 
 how to place with a chic that is a talent in 
 itself. 
 
 And then a day came when she decided to re- 
 turn to her people, for reasons that concerned the 
 welfare of her parents, who were getting old; 
 and it was thus that my little lady of the vel- 
 vet gown became gradually a memory, for six 
 months later, when I returned to Paris, she was 
 gone, and I understood, for she had written me 
 much, and not even Rose Javet could tell me 
 more. 
 
 Two years passed. It was spring again, and 
 I stood, a stranger in a strange land, upon the 
 deck of an energetic little steamboat that had 
 picked me up at the Marguerite Island, with its 
 baths and its rose garden, and was now breast- 
 ing the moonlit tide of the Danube, zigzagging
 
 BY THE GRACE OF ALLAH 143 
 
 across this fairy river to touch at the small sta- 
 tions on its way back to Pest. 
 
 There is a strange fascination about the 
 Danube in the moonlight the river in the 
 moonlight is purely Japanese. The air was soft 
 to-night the air of the Orient soft as the 
 water in the ancient baths of Buda, soft as the 
 scent of the roses I had just left; upon the 
 Marguerite Island one can bathe to the music 
 of the gypsies. 
 
 Possibly it was the scent of these roses in 
 spring that made me think of her. I do not 
 know. I only know that with a sense of lone- 
 liness upon the deck of the steamboat that was 
 now sheering away from a station with an un- 
 pronounceable name, a sudden desire to see her 
 took possession of me. This wild desire to find 
 her blotted out all else in my mind. 
 
 Are we not strange beings? Find her, but 
 where? There was not one chance in a thou- 
 sand, yet I dared not confess it, even to myself; 
 and as the steamboat drew away from Buda 
 and swung near the glittering lights of Pest, I 
 found myself searching the hidden recesses of
 
 144 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 a worn portfolio for a folded bit of paper that 
 had lain there since the morning of our 
 parting. 
 
 It was still there, I discovered by the light 
 of the deck lantern, but so creased that it nearly 
 fell apart as I opened it and read her address 
 in Philippopoli. This cracked scrap of paper 
 now assumed an importance which I cannot de- 
 cribe; my whole happiness seemed to depend 
 upon its preservation, and I stood there drunk 
 with a great joy, and all the old days came back 
 to me. That gentle evening in spring when I 
 first espied her sitting in the corner of the 
 Grande Taverne. It all seemed as yesterday 
 now. I could hardly wait until the busy little 
 steamer touched the wharf at Pest to send a 
 telegram. 
 
 I wrote it in the simplest French, clear and 
 concise, that she might not be puzzled; and, 
 with a dogged confidence in the charity of 
 Allah, sent it forth in the night, a distance of 
 over thirty hours by train. And all that 
 night the band of Toll Janczi played to me 
 in a smoky cafe beneath the street, for I
 
 BY THE GRACE OF ALLAH 145 
 
 could not sleep. And there is comfort in a 
 gypsy's fiddle. 
 
 At dawn I went to bed, and when I awoke the 
 sun was shining, and I crossed the river to old 
 Buda, and tramped up an ancient road that led 
 to a fort close beside a little cafe with a garden, 
 in which I breakfasted at noon. And there, 
 gazing down over Buda, I killed time and the 
 dragging hours. The wind blew fresh, and one 
 was well there in the little garden, and I dared 
 not hope for an answer much before night. 
 
 Time and time again, I said to myself: 
 
 ' There is not one chance in a thousand you 
 
 are a fool!" And a strange dread would seize 
 
 me, and then again I would take fresh 
 
 courage. 
 
 It was dusk when I left Buda and recrossed 
 the river a river full of the vague mystery of 
 doubt and hope to me now. 
 
 And there, in the telegraph office, lay my an- 
 swer an answer which I crumpled up from 
 sheer nervousness before I gained the fresh air 
 and broke the seal. 
 
 Ah, you do not know! You can never know
 
 146 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 what I felt! It was as if the whole world was 
 singing joyously in my ears, and I felt faint. 
 
 PHILJPPOPOLJS Tuesday. 
 
 Arrive Thursday, one o'clock. 
 
 As the hands on the clock of the big station 
 crawled slowly toward one, I gazed down the 
 empty track under the steam-filled shed with a 
 beating heart. Had she changed? How in- 
 credible it was! The chance I had taken! Do 
 not say you do not believe in miracles! I 
 seemed to be living in some strange dream, in 
 which the good fairy was in a few moments to 
 wave her jewelled wand, and cry: "Behold!" 
 
 Five minutes more but the clock was 
 wrong, and the train late. No one seemed to 
 know exactly how late. 
 
 "It came from very far," explained a swarthy 
 official lazily. 
 
 Hah* an hour passed. The minutes dragged 
 so the hands of the clock seemed to have grown 
 weary and stopped. One hour! One torturing 
 hour, in which I paced up and down. The 
 strain was beginning to tell on me. Ah, mon
 
 BY THE GRACE OF ALLAH 147 
 
 Dieu! Then suddenly the wailing shriek of an 
 engine my hands grew cold. The next in- 
 stant the express from the Orient came rumbling 
 into the great shed, coughing up a cloud of steam 
 that rilled the shed, while out of the train poured 
 its passengers like hurrying phantoms in a fog. 
 
 "Pierre!" 
 
 It was she! 
 
 A trim little figure in a velvet gown, gray 
 with the dust of the East, and in each hand she 
 carried two round paper hatboxes. 
 
 "Pierre! Pierre!" 
 
 Both hatboxes fell to the ground. One rolled, 
 and a Hungarian gentleman ran after it, picked 
 it up, and set it down beside its mate; but she 
 did not see, for her firm little arms were about 
 my neck, and her lips were murmuring "Pierre, 
 Pierre!" against my own. 
 
 There were days when we wandered in the 
 soft sunlight over Buda. There were twilights 
 when the small steamer carried us up to the 
 Island of Roses, and she sat beside me on the 
 deck, her hand in mine, and all the world seemed
 
 148 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 glad. There were whole days which we spent 
 idling along the edge of the Danube as far as 
 Vatz. 
 
 Our river here rippled with a lazy cadence 
 against a pebbly shore, upon which we built a 
 fire and breakfasted, and watched the water 
 mills, built on piles far out on the turquoise tide, 
 turning slowly as they ground the peasant 
 corn; and beyond them lay stretches of waving 
 rice beds, out of which started up now and then a 
 flight of wild duck. And beyond these lay the 
 velvety green lowlands from which rose in the 
 shining haze jagged peaks of amethyst and 
 jade. Sometimes a passing gypsy played for us. 
 Often a huge catfish would swirl to the surface 
 close to the pebbly shore. 
 
 Ah, how much she had to tell me! Of her 
 mother's illness; of how, before her return, she 
 had learned of his being ordered far out of her 
 country with his regiment. 
 
 She had not changed, save that she was more 
 beautiful a woman now, with still the eager 
 heart of a child, and the song of her voice was 
 restful. Often she counted my money, that the
 
 BY THE GRACE OF ALLAH 149 
 
 modest sum might last long; and her economy 
 was amazing. She could invent little ways to 
 save that were unknown to me. 
 
 And yet again the end came, with just enough 
 left for her voyage back to her land and for 
 mine to Paris. It was a parting that would 
 have been unbearable had she not promised to 
 return to work again for the little modiste in the 
 Rue de Seine. 
 
 How blind is our confidence in the future! 
 
 "You are getting old." That is what I say 
 to myself. "You are forty -three, and you are 
 even poorer than in your youth, for you are 
 more philosophical with what you have, and, 
 besides, happiness is not given at your age. It 
 is bought. People are beginning to have a cer- 
 tain respect for you, which is exasperating. 
 Younger men now address you as * Monsieur/ 
 If any one says * Tiens, c'est toi?' to you now, 
 you smile gratefully, and something out of the 
 past grips at your heart. 
 
 " Where are Marcelle, and Celeste, and Yvonne, 
 and Rose Javet? Gone! And the Grande Tav-
 
 150 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 erne has become a brazen bazaar of nourish- 
 ment. Be glad if any one raps at your studio 
 door. You have a store of memories, but when 
 you recall them, it is like gazing into an empty 
 drawer that had once contained a precious 
 treasure. 
 
 "You have grown neater in your appearance, 
 for to be slovenly at your age is to be decrepid. 
 You have grown firm in your prejudices, and 
 little things irritate you. You are getting to be 
 an absurd old ass. In a few years you will be 
 forced to wear broadcloth and a red ribbon in 
 your buttonhole, and people will address you 
 as 'Maitre,' which is worse than 'Monsieur.' 
 
 :< The devil! And you expect some one to 
 love you at your age?" 
 
 I looked up from my reverie out of the studio 
 window, over the sea of leaden roofs, glistening 
 under the thrash of a January rain the chim- 
 ney hoods whining and creaking, as if in pain, 
 under the buffeting onslaught of every fresh 
 gust. Then I seized my storm coat, hat, and 
 umbrella, and, turning the key in the rusty 
 lock of my studio door, started to join my old
 
 BY THE GRACE OF ALLAH 151 
 
 friend, Delacour, across the Seine. The wind 
 blew the rain straight in one's face. I lowered 
 my umbrella, and forged ahead. 
 
 As I turned down the Rue Mazarine, on my 
 way to the quay, I caught sight only of the feet 
 of the passersby, and thus I continued down 
 this narrow ravine of a street, whose sidewalk 
 shrinks against the fronts of its ancient houses 
 at the very places where it should widen. 
 
 On now past the hobnailed boots of a coal 
 man, past the trim, high-heeled boots of a made- 
 moiselle, who, I discovered upon raising my 
 umbrella, was pretty. Past a dignified old 
 gentleman hurrying along the dripping walls of 
 the Institute shoes out of date, but neatly 
 brushed. Past a butcher boy, and two priests, 
 in shoes that might have fitted two giant grand- 
 mothers; past a pair of little shoes and a glimpse 
 of a black skirt, and I passed them with a strange 
 sensation. I stopped, and raised the umbrella, 
 for I had awkwardly touched the figure in passing. 
 
 "I demand pardon, Madame," I apologized, 
 and turned to raise my hat. Then my heart 
 for the moment seemed to stop beating.
 
 152 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 She had stopped also, and her eyes were wide 
 open, and looking into mine with the stare of a 
 woman whose heart had also nearly stopped 
 beating. 
 
 A short, round little woman, with a full oval 
 face, no waist, and small hands gloved in lisle 
 thread, broken at the thumb and forefinger, 
 which grasped an umbrella with a leaden swan 
 for a handle. 
 
 Neither of us had yet uttered a word 
 
 "Pierre! Pierre!" she exclaimed faintly, in 
 the laboured voice of a ghost. 
 
 "C'est toi, c'est bien toi?" 
 
 And we stood there trembling, unable for 
 the moment to speak. 
 
 Then I took her hand in mine a hand 
 which did not seem alive and nodded to a 
 passing fiacre. 
 
 "Ten Rue des Deux Amis," 1 believe I 
 stammered to the grizzled coachman. 
 
 "Bien, Monsieur." 
 
 But she hesitated, even drew back, still 
 trembling, her foot on the muddy step, a plead- 
 ing look in her eyes. Then a sudden faintness
 
 BY THE GRACE OF ALLAH 153 
 
 seized her, and, without a word, she entered the 
 stuffy fiacre, smelling of the stale cigar of the 
 last client, and burst into tears. 
 
 We had so much to say we could say nothing. 
 Now and then fragmentary sentences escaped 
 us as we rattled on; mostly apropos of her hat, 
 which was knocked askew and out of fashion 
 like her dear dress, the skirt of which was shiny. 
 Then I unbuttoned a worn mite of a glove, 
 stripping it gently from a small, pudgy hand, 
 red from housework, with two dimples in place 
 of one, and showing those unmistakable signs 
 of industry the roughened pricks of a needle. 
 
 "Listen, Pierre," she began, taking courage, 
 and then faltered. "It is not right that I go 
 there," she breathed. "It will be only for a 
 moment, since thou hast insisted." 
 
 "Thou shalt come, nevertheless," I remember 
 saying, "if it is only to welcome thee as far as 
 my door." 
 
 She drew close to me, shuddering as if the eye 
 of Allah were upon her. 
 
 "Listen, Pierre," she murmured, gripping 
 my hand. " I am married. I have told him all."
 
 154 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 She was quite pale, her lips parted in a 
 timid smile. For some moments neither spoke. 
 Then she resumed nervously, her voice, little 
 by little, gaining courage: 
 
 " I have a great esteem for him. He is very kind. 
 He is one to whom I owe much. We have three 
 boarders a gentleman, a lady, and her son. 
 It keeps me very busy," she explained seriously, 
 "for we cannot afford to keep a servant." 
 
 I lifted the small, red hand to my lips. 
 
 "Pierre, it is pretty no longer," she said. 
 
 The windows of the fiacre shivered as we 
 rattled into the Rue des Deux Amis. 
 
 She drew hastily from her breast a tiny silver 
 watch, and glanced at it with a start. 
 
 "Four minutes to five!" she exclaimed. 
 "Pierre, Pierre, I cannot, even for a moment! 
 It is too late." 
 
 'Yes," I returned. "You are right It is 
 too late. Where art thou going?" 
 
 "To the Rue Jean Roubet. Pierre, thou wilt 
 forgive me?" 
 
 I leaned out of the window, and touched the 
 old cabman's arm.
 
 BY THE GRACE OF ALLAH 156 
 
 *'To the Rue Jean Roubet." 
 
 "Bien, Monsieur.'" 
 
 "Tell him to stop at the corner, at the end of 
 the big wall of the hospital," she added ner- 
 vously. 
 
 "Is he ill?" I questioned anxiously. 
 
 "Ah, no! Allah be praised!" And for an 
 instant her face became radiant. 
 
 "Listen, Pierre. Thou must know: He is 
 very wise." 
 
 Again the free hand went to her breast, and 
 she drew forth a printed paper, unfolded it, and 
 pointed to a paragraph as we neared the cor- 
 ner of the Rue Jean Roubet. 
 
 "It is he," she murmured as I read: 
 
 Friday, at five o'clock, in room B, lecture by the Pro- 
 fessor Delfontaine on Anaesthesia and the Heart. 
 
 The fiacre stopped at the corner under the 
 great wall, cheerless and massive as that of a 
 prison in the rain. 
 
 "Thou must not get out," she said gently, 
 with a pleading look. 
 
 Then she rose, leaned forward, kissed me rev*
 
 156 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 erently on both cheeks, squeezed past my knees^ 
 opened the door quickly, and was gone. 
 
 It was the end, and I sat there for some mo- 
 ments, immovable, staring at the tears sliding 
 down the blurred windows of the fiacre, my 
 heart tingling with a strange feeling of mingled 
 peace and gratitude. 
 
 I never saw her again, yet the memory of her is as clear 
 as if it happened yesterday: as if she still stood before me 
 as she did that morning in Pest the velvet dress dusty from 
 her long journey, the two hatboxes in her hands. Only the 
 other evening Toupin and I were strolling before dinner in 
 the Luxembourg Gardens and I passed the same bench where 
 we used to sit beside the stagnant fountain of the Medicis. 
 
 F.B. S
 
 CHAPTER FIVE 
 THE THOROUGHBRED
 
 The old Latin Quarter has changed since the good old days 
 of our tavern friends. My friend the painter, Ransom, and 
 I find the liveliest centre of Paris around the opera 
 more amusing nowadays. The old Latin Quarter at least 
 the old life there is no more, or are we getting older? 
 Marie laughs when we discuss these things but then Marie 
 is still young. F. B. S.
 
 CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 THE THOROUGHBRED 
 
 IT WAS five o'clock, and the Parisian Bar 
 was crowded. The talk was in many lan- 
 guages vibrant, gesticulating talk from Rio 
 De Janeiro; calm, steel-like talk from wealthy 
 jockeys; confidential conversation from the last 
 man in the world to acknowledge he was broke; 
 blatant speech from florid gentlemen with broad 
 shoulders, fat stomachs, and an unquenchable 
 thirst. 
 
 "Hello, Charley! Well, say, can you beat 
 it? If you're good I'll buy you a drink. Lis- 
 
 159
 
 160 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 ten! Did you ever hear the story about - 
 Hold on, this is a crackajack. Have you heard 
 it? Boy, take the orders." 
 
 The electric fans were whirring at top speed 
 to get rid of the smoke. Some old gentleman 
 coughed and declared it was "too hot in here." 
 
 "Say, I got a car outside that's a wonder. 
 Come out to Bellevue, and get some air." 
 
 Over the rattle of the cocktail shaker jarred 
 the talk a steaming bedlam, apropos of 
 women and horses, and Preferred Pacific, and 
 General Electric, and the terrible night that, 
 had passed; and some said "Never again," and 
 ordered a gin fizz, and squeezed their way to 
 the stock ticker; and some said: "Did he 
 went?" and others: "Was you there?" and 
 "How is the missus?" "Present my regards." 
 And the smoke was thick, I say, and some were 
 married, and some were not, and all had lived 
 the pace. 
 
 It was a sort of public club, whose dues were 
 a franc a drink, and whose membership included 
 every type, from the soul of honour to the trans- 
 atlantic crook. Here, too, came daily the re-
 
 THE THOROUGHBRED 161 
 
 tired politician, at rest in a foreign land, and who 
 spoke of the old days and Tammany Hall with 
 tears in his eyes. And there was a broken ghost 
 with a shield of true love tattooed on his gaunt 
 hand, a blazon containing the flag of the United 
 States of America intertwined with the Union 
 Jack, and beneath it the words in blue: " Mag- 
 gie." His check also had not come. Besides, 
 it was Paris, that magnet of the world which is 
 a dangerous place for the man with nothing to 
 do and Broadway habits. 
 
 Somehow the Parisian Bar "made one feel at 
 home," and there was Paris outside to reel 
 around in and get late for dinner; and some 
 buttonholed you and told you the pet stories 
 of Noah, and you had to roar and say: "Boy, 
 take the orders," shoulder to shoulder next to 
 the sober jockeys, and a few sparring partners, 
 and the faded nobility; the successful business 
 men, and the fat one whose jewelled rings guar- 
 anteed his wealth from the Argentine Republic. 
 
 And so they steamed, and so they swore, and 
 most of them told you all about themselves, and 
 nothing about Her. Briefly, it was a place
 
 162 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 where the selfish beast was frankly in his ele- 
 ment, and you marvelled at the patience of their 
 wives. 
 
 Then entered Jason Captain Reginald 
 Rivers Jason tall, and slim, and soldierly. 
 You saw that calm courage of his in his clear, 
 gray eyes, and his breeding in his clean-cut 
 features. Jason impressed you from the first 
 as a thoroughbred. From the top of his blond 
 head to the heels of his immaculately valeted 
 boots, he convinced you of being the well-bred 
 young Englishman that he was. His voice was 
 one of those refined voices that do not jar on the 
 nerves, for it was soft, pitched low, and the 
 English he used was fit enough for a printed 
 page 
 
 He was exceedingly modest, and when he 
 spoke of himself there was almost a note of 
 apology in his voice for having done so. One 
 thing that was most amazing about Jason was 
 the clear, healthy freshness of his skin, and the 
 brightness of his eyes. He looked like a man 
 who went to bed at eight o'clock, and drank 
 mineral water by preference; whereas, the fact
 
 THE THOROUGHBRED 163 
 
 was, Jason seldom went to bed, and had a 
 capacity for brandy fizzes that was as amazing 
 as his memory. 
 
 We had met again in the Parisian Bar this 
 soft May morning, and for the first time I 
 noticed Jason showed signs of fatigue. There 
 was just the vestige of a sleepless night about his 
 eyes. 
 
 "Tired?" I ventured. 
 
 He coughed slightly, and said, in his calm, 
 gentle voice: 
 
 "I took a long walk last night." 
 
 "Where?" I questioned. 
 
 "The stars led me on," he said, smiling, and 
 added: "I walked halfway around Paris by 
 way of the fortifications." 
 
 "It is a wonder you were not stabbed or 
 shot," I declared. 
 
 "No, old chap," he returned. "No one 
 troubled me. You see, I love to walk at night. 
 That is why I have five small apartments in 
 different quarters, so I can turn in at dawn in 
 the nearest where I happen to be." 
 
 I said nothing, and Jason said:
 
 164 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "It is warm, rather; is it not?" 
 
 And I said: 
 
 "I shot over a big shoot of an old friend the 
 other day in Sologne. The heat was fearful. 
 We were sizzled." 
 
 And Jason said: 
 
 "I've been to see my dogs. Charming coun- 
 try out there too lovely for words and the 
 stars I walked quite all night." 
 
 "Dogs with you?" I inquired. 
 
 "Yes, God bless them!" 
 
 "How many have you acquired?" 
 
 "Well, old chap, I must confess to more dogs 
 than I should have. I've got thirty-two." 
 
 "Thirty-two? And you keep thirty-two dogs 
 and still have enough to eat?" 
 
 Jason coughed slightly, and continued gently: 
 
 "I dare say I'm a fool to keep so many, but I 
 found a charming estate one of those little 
 old chateaux \vith the towers and steep roofs, 
 and I couldn't resist it. My dogs had not seen 
 me in a twelvemonth, and they were overjoyed; 
 rushed pell-mell from my guard's house when I 
 whistled ; just one short whistle at the gate, and
 
 THE THOROUGHBRED 165 
 
 they came madly rushing to me. You know, 
 I've got a Scotch terrier, and when the rest of 
 the troupe followed me that night, the little fel- 
 low, the Scotch terrier, stuck to my heels; I 
 thought it was rather nice in him, for we had 
 quarrelled a twelvemonth before, and, do you 
 know, I believe he knew he was in the wrong?" 
 
 Jason sipped his brandy fizz, threw a coin on 
 the bar, and I said nothing. 
 
 His modesty held him silent. 
 
 "Forgive me, old chap," he said at length, 
 "if I have talked too much. I love dogs. Do 
 you remember the Comte de Joinville's de- 
 scription of his wolfhound? You must get that 
 book. Still better, let me send it to you." 
 
 "That's good of you," I said, "but I hate to 
 borrow books. I never think to return them." 
 
 "But I've got a first edition," he insisted. 
 "I'll tell my solicitor to send it to you. He's 
 rather conscientious, you see. It's in my library 
 in London. I haven't seen my house in years, 
 but I dare say he'll find it. You see, old chap, 
 something happened the thing you call the 
 game of love and since then I've never cared
 
 166 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 to return. I've taken the Channel steamer sev- 
 eral times, and balked when it came to ringing 
 my own doorbell." 
 
 "Memory of her?*' I ventured. 
 
 " Yes," he said. " I met her in India rather 
 rough on me. She was the daughter of a maha- 
 rajah." 
 
 I sipped my fizz, and Jason was silent. 
 
 "When were you in India?" I asked, at 
 length. 
 
 "Several times," he replied. "I was born 
 in China. I like India better, even more than 
 Borneo." 
 
 "Borneo!" I exclaimed. "There's a coun- 
 try I should like to see." 
 
 "Rather amusing Borneo," said Jason. 
 
 "And you lived there?" 
 
 : 'Yes, among head-hunters, barefooted, for 
 two years on the open beach. Wonderful 
 nights, old chap!" 
 
 "Tell me more," I said. 
 
 "Oh, there isn't much to tell," said Jason. 
 "Except they were kind to me, and made me 
 blood-brother of their tribe. I shall never forget
 
 THE THOROUGHBRED 167 
 
 their constant little warfares and their quite 
 feudal hospitality. They had rites, you know, 
 and all that sort of thing; and dancing, and 
 great feasts on the beach." 
 
 "And tortures," I added. 
 
 "It was done rather too quickly for torture," 
 Jason replied, touching the rim of his glass with 
 the crest ring of his own people. 
 
 The more I saw of Jason, the more I grew to 
 respect that quiet voice of his, and the marvel- 
 lous stories of his life, which I only obtained 
 piecemeal, owing to his extreme modesty. 
 Never had I known his equal, and when this 
 morning I mentioned, as we stood talking, how 
 fit he looked, he informed me he had not been 
 to bed. 
 
 "Where have you been?" I ventured indis- 
 creetly. 
 
 "Down in the markets, old chap. I lend a 
 hand there once in a while just at dawn. 
 Last night we unloaded cabbages. Great game, 
 unloading cabbages, and there are some queer 
 old characters down in the Halles. The one
 
 168 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 drawback, you see, is," he added, after a faint, 
 nervous cough, and a fresh order for a fizz, "is 
 that one has to drink absinthe rather bad 
 absinthe, I should say. Generous chaps, those 
 big fellows who load the carts." 
 
 "And rather insistent, I suppose, that you 
 should drink with them," I ventured. 
 
 "One can't very well refuse," he went on. 
 "Rather an exciting night last night. We un- 
 loaded five carts we had to work fast. You 
 see, everything depends on the hour of the first 
 sales; often there's barely time." 
 
 "And so you did not go to bed at all?" 
 
 "No," he said gently. "I went for a ride 
 in the Bois. I keep my saddle horses there. 
 I've only two now. You see, old chap, I've 
 made a bet with myself not to touch my prin- 
 cipal, and I thought that the four other nags I 
 had were only a useless expense. It costs rather 
 dear to keep a horse here, whereas in England 
 one can have one's horses more or less reason- 
 ably." 
 
 "So you sold the four?" 
 
 He smiled, and when Jason smiles it is a
 
 THE THOROUGHBRED 169 
 
 kindly smile, touched with apology and re- 
 gret. 
 
 "I must confess, old fellow, I didn't sell them. 
 I gave them away," he confessed. "Possibly 
 you remember four little English girls who 
 danced at the Folies Bergeres. They were quite 
 too lovely, but I imagine the life of a theatre is 
 a little hard. And there happened to be a chap 
 who knew them, and when he introduced me 
 I found them quite pale. So I said : * You must 
 ride, my dears.' 'But we don't know how, 
 sir!' they said. 'Then you must learn,' I told 
 them. And I had Briquet, the riding master, 
 teach them. And I said: 'When you learn, 
 and Briquet tells me you are quite sure in the 
 saddle, you shall each have a horse for your 
 very own." 
 
 "By George! That was nice of you," I put 
 in. "And they learned? And they still ride, 
 I suppose?" 
 
 "Charity is rather difficult," said Jason, after 
 a pause. "One never knows quite what to do 
 in giving, you see. Briquet fell in love with the 
 eldest, and sold the horses, and eloped with her to
 
 170 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 Brussels. I've rather blamed myself for my trust 
 in Briquet. He was rather a rotter, wasn't he? " 
 
 Jason paused, and I said "Damn!" out of 
 sympathy for him. 
 
 Now, the more I saw of Jason, I say, the more 
 I was impressed with his genuineness and his 
 sincerity. Now and then he would refer to his 
 several different domiciles scattered over Paris; 
 and although it was evident, as he was wont to 
 say, that he sometimes passed the night in one 
 of them where, as he told me, "everything was 
 always in readiness, should he turn the key in 
 the door, and where his caretaker was never 
 absent," months would often pass during which 
 he entered none of them. These caretakers, 
 he told me, he had collected in England. And 
 he had but one great weakness as far as I could 
 discover his love of Persian rugs, and he 
 bought them so that at the end of the month, 
 for he had an account with three Armenian 
 rug experts, his rug bill ran higher than his 
 weekly losses at the races. 
 
 "And I believe, old chap," he said, "if I did 
 not hold myself well in check with a tight rein,
 
 THE THOROUGHBRED 171 
 
 I should be quite ruined in a fortnight. I love 
 good rugs. They are like old friends. I love 
 the soft colours. There is, after all, nothing 
 like a good rug. It has, if I may say so, a per- 
 sonality of its own. Just like my wolves had." 
 
 "Wolves!" I exclaimed. 
 
 'Yes," said Jason. "You know I had a 
 house once close to the Bois, quite in the forest." 
 
 "And wolves?" 
 
 "Yes," he confessed, "four. There is no more 
 trusty watchdog in the world than a forest-bred 
 wolf. They became very much attached to me, 
 and then there is always a sense of danger, you 
 know. One nearly killed my gardener, whom 
 for some strange, and to me wholly unaccount- 
 able, reason he had taken a violent dislike to." 
 
 After Jason made a statement of this kind he 
 was unusually silent, twisting his blond mous- 
 tache, and coughing slightly out of a sort of ner- 
 vous embarrassment for having spoken of himself 
 at all. 
 
 There were hours when the Parisian Bar was 
 deserted, and as Jason seldom ate anything,
 
 172 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 and more seldom went to bed, he found a cer- 
 tain restful repose when the Parisian Bar was 
 empty; and so, one night, we sat there during 
 the empty hours. And no sound broke his 
 even, quiet voice save the buzz of the electric 
 fan, and I saw him wince a little as he leaned 
 over to light a fresh cigarette. 
 
 "In pain? "I asked. 
 
 "No, old chap, not worth speaking of," he 
 replied. "It passes quicker than it once did. 
 It's only an old wound. I had the good luck 
 to be among the first to enter Peking. But that 
 is another story. This old keepsake of a bul- 
 let, if I may call it so, I got getting over a wall 
 during one of our skirmishes in the Boer War. 
 Strange to say, I was thrice wounded climb- 
 ing over obstacles." 
 
 I looked up at him with profound respect, 
 and again marvelled at this remarkable man; 
 and soon he was chatting briskly an unusual 
 thing with him about his losses at the races, 
 which that week had been heavier than usual. 
 
 And just then in came Billy Ransom. The 
 Lord know r s Ransom is quixotic enough, but he's
 
 THE THOROUGHBRED 173 
 
 nothing compared with Jason. Now, Bill and 
 I have been friends for years. You may re- 
 member "Tiger Drinking." The salon gave 
 him a medal for it, and Ransom got lazy after 
 that, and had his studio cleaned. I had just 
 mentioned to Jason, as we three sat talking, 
 Ransom's "Tiger," and Jason declared quietly 
 that to him the tiger was the king of beasts, 
 and not the lion. 
 
 "I dare say there are those who might differ 
 with me," he added, "but to me the grace and 
 beauty of a pure Bengal are a glorious sight." 
 
 "Ever seen one wild?" asked Ransom. He 
 hulked back his big shoulders, and there was 
 a good-natured twinkle in his blue eye. 
 
 ;< Yes," said Jason. 
 
 "Where?" I ventured. 
 
 "In India with my elephants," added Jason. 
 
 " Your elephants?" 
 
 "Yes, old chap. One has to have them, you 
 know. It is quite too dangerous, you see, to 
 shoot tigers without elephants." 
 
 "Gee!" said Ransom. "I never knew you 
 had hunted tigers. And you got one, eh?"
 
 174 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 Jason smiled. 
 
 "Wait, let me count," he said slowly. And 
 he counted on his fingers, interrupting himself 
 with some unintelligible names of places in the 
 tiger districts. 
 
 "Seventeen," he finally declared. 
 
 "Seventeen what?" I inquired. 
 
 "Tigers," reph'ed Jason. 'The largest one 
 I remember killing was upon the estate of a 
 maharajah, a great friend of my uncle's." 
 
 "Tell me more," I demanded, now alive with 
 interest, though there was a genial curl of doubt 
 about Ransom's under lip. 
 
 "Ah," said Jason, "there isn't much to tell. 
 Killing tigers is like killing anything else. Be- 
 sides, with a good elephant if the beast is 
 getting the better of him, the elephant, you see, 
 just rolls on him while you hang on." 
 
 "Go on!" said Ransom, with a roar of laugh- 
 ter. "Don't kid me. Why, you'd be killed 
 when he rolled." 
 
 I saw Jason stiffen, grow a little red; and I saw, 
 too, that Ransom's ill-bred remark had hurt 
 Jason.
 
 THE THOROUGHBRED 175 
 
 "None of my elephants have ever hurt me," he 
 replied simply, after an awkward pause. "My 
 old Tor, who was my best elephant for three 
 years, would have sooner been killed than to 
 have hurt me. Once, when I was obliged to 
 leave him for a fortnight, he ate nothing for 
 several days." 
 
 "And his joy at seeing you on your return?" 
 I added, by way of balm to Ransom's affront. 
 
 "Rather," said Jason, and I saw the tears 
 start in his eyes. 
 
 Of course, Ransom felt like thirty cents, and 
 he deserved to. 
 
 If you don't like this true story it's no fault 
 of mine. I'm only trying to tell you about 
 Jason. To me he's a marvel. To Ransom 
 well, Ransom is one of those rapins of Mont- 
 martre who believe in no one. You have only 
 to look into Jason's eyes, calm and clear as a 
 spring, to know he is telling the truth. 
 
 That is what I told Ransom, and I saw him 
 hesitate, and then take water; and finally he 
 agreed I was right. And we three, Jason, and 
 he, and I, were good friends after that, and I
 
 176 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 loved to sit and hear Jason talk in his quiet, 
 sincere way about episodes and incidents that 
 many another man would have boasted over in 
 imagining more than had really happened, 
 whereas Jason was calm and exact, and had no 
 imagination whatever, which was proof enough 
 to me he didn't lie. 
 
 Now, the vicissitudes of life are constant ever 
 among the rich, and a man like Jason, who can 
 afford to dash across the Channel and back to 
 dine with friends in London, is not exactly a 
 pauper, and this is what Jason did every now 
 and then, for I saw him myself leave the Parisian 
 Bar in a taxicab to catch the night express twice 
 to my knowledge, to dine with friends in London. 
 
 Naturally, I did not ask with whom, any more 
 than I would have been indiscreet enough to 
 inquire the number and street of his various 
 domiciles. They were purely Jason's affair, 
 and not mine, and if he did not offer the in- 
 formation himself, I certainly, as I say, did not 
 intend to drag it out of him, much as I was in- 
 terested in this strange man, and convinced, as 
 I was, of his splendid sincerity.
 
 THE THOROUGHBRED 177 
 
 I believe it happened before three whiskies 
 and sodas, but when I think of it again, one was 
 an eggnog that was Ransom's and Jason, 
 standing between us, and in a hurry to rush to 
 the races at Longchamps, felt for his pocket- 
 book. He withdrew his hand from the pocket 
 of his check suit, and a peculiar calm smile crept 
 to the corners of his eyes. Oh, only for a second, 
 but the smile did not escape me. 
 
 "What's happened?" I asked. 
 
 "Nothing worth thinking over," returned 
 Jason. " I dare say it was foolish in me to have 
 carried so large a sum about with me. " 
 
 "Gone?" I exclaimed. 
 
 ; 'Yes," he replied gently. 
 
 "Where were you last night?" 
 
 "Oh intheHalles." 
 
 " Unloading cabbages, of course. " 
 
 "No, beets. Last night," he said, turning," last 
 night was the heaviest I remember in my life. " 
 
 "And yet you look as fresh as a young colt 
 out of a field," I returned. 
 
 "How much money did you have with you?" 
 interrupted Ransom.
 
 178 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "Five or six thousand and odd francs," said 
 Jason, very quietly. 
 
 "Five or six thousand francs!" we exclaimed, 
 aghast. 
 
 "You lost five or six thousand francs! And 
 you carried that sum into the Halles, and into 
 the worst dives I know? It's amazing," I de- 
 clared. 
 
 "More foolish than amazing," returned 
 Jason. 
 
 "Who took it? Have you even a vestige of 
 an idea?" I ventured. 
 
 "Yes," said Jason. "A little girl in Qua- 
 vous'. You know Quavous' cafe, next to the 
 fish market. You see, old chap, she was cry- 
 ing, and I felt sorry for her." 
 
 "And, somehow, her head found a resting 
 place on your shoulder." 
 
 ; 'Yes," said Jason frankly. "I felt sorry for 
 her." 
 
 "While she felt for your pocketbook," said 
 Ransom. 
 
 "I dare say that is what occurred," confessed 
 Jason.
 
 THE THOROUGHBRED 179 
 
 "And you are not going to the police?" ex- 
 claimed Ransom, in surprise. 
 
 "It would only get her into trouble," said 
 Jason. "One must be tolerant in life with 
 those who are unfortunate. Besides, their life 
 is hard enough." 
 
 "Say," said Ransom, "you're a noble per- 
 son, and I like you, but you take the cake! 
 She'll have a carriage, a gown from the Rue de 
 la Paix, and an apartment near the Bois by 
 to-morrow." 
 
 "It was a sum one of my solicitors had 
 brought me from an estate over in Sussex," ex- 
 plained Jason, "and he came quite late to my 
 hotel, just as I was going out last night. And I 
 thought nothing more about it, and put it into 
 my pocket. Can you see? After all, it doesn't 
 matter. I should more than probably have lost 
 it to-day on the races. It is a little awkward, 
 isn't it, being Saturday, and the bank closed?" 
 I looked at Ransom, and one of those mental 
 telegrams passed between us. Jason was too 
 good a fellow to refuse. He accepted the mod- 
 est sum we managed to produce between us.
 
 180 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "If it wasn't, you see, old chap, that Don't 
 Worry is going to run to-day, I'll be hanged if 
 I'd go near the races. He comes from a good 
 stable. Do you know, I've known that horse 
 since he was a colt." 
 
 There crept again that calm gleam in his clear 
 eyes, and the corners of his mouth winked in a 
 smile as he scribbled a receipt for the nine hun- 
 dred francs we had given him. Not a bad sum 
 to rake up from the pockets of two painters, but 
 both Ransom and I had just been paid ac- 
 tually paid for a picture and we tore up the 
 receipt, and sprinkled the bits over Jason's 
 immaculate derby hat, which made Jason flush 
 a little, and finally burst out laughing, a thing 
 which he seldom did, not wishing to jar "those 
 who might be sad about him with mirth which 
 might be unwelcome and unseemly at the mo- 
 ment to those who might be sad." 
 
 That is about the way Jason expressed it to 
 me one day when we were discussing considera- 
 tion to others, and his quiet, unassuming punc- 
 tiliousness in this respect was charming. You 
 see, Jason was a gentleman, born and bred.
 
 THE THOROUGHBRED 181 
 
 And so he went off to the races, and the re- 
 ceipt lay in bits where he had stood. For who 
 could take a receipt from a thoroughbred like 
 Jason? 
 
 Both Ransom and I felt relieved; neither of 
 us is used to carrying around large sums. We, 
 too, might have met a tearful lady in distress, 
 and, besides, giving it to Jason was like putting 
 it into the bank. We knew it was safe, and 
 would be returned to us promptly. 
 
 The following day, Sunday, Jason disappeared. 
 
 Ransom came into my studio with a short 
 note from Jason, saying he had been suddenly 
 called to London on a matter of selling one of 
 his kennels of terriers. Ransom was quite wor- 
 ried. He even went so far as to call Jason a 
 Munchausen, which was foolish in Ransom, be- 
 cause he should have been more observant, and 
 have well, frankly, Ransom never expected 
 to get his money back, but I did. It seems a 
 hard thing to say, but those were almost his 
 very words. I cursed Ransom. I said: 
 
 "Old boy, you should have more knowledge 
 of character than not to know Jason is a thor-
 
 182 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 oughbred. Don't you know he's got seven 
 separate apartments in Paris, dogs and horses 
 where he wills?" 
 
 "But where does he live?" asked Ransom 
 earnestly, and so point-blank that I halted in 
 my enthusiasm. 
 
 "Well, I can't tell you exactly where he lives," 
 said I. "I've never been indiscreet enough to 
 inquire, but I'll bet you the interior of the par- 
 ticular home he chooses for a day or a fortnight 
 is the home of a gentleman. You heard what 
 he said about his rugs? His favourite rugs are 
 with him, mark my word, and he has a hobby 
 for early editions, and stained glass, and - 
 
 "Have you finished?" interrupted Ransom. 
 
 "I tell you!" and he banged his fist on the 
 table so that the bottle of bubbling soda top- 
 pled and reeled up steady. 
 
 "He's a liar!" shouted Ransom. "To my 
 mind, our money's gone." 
 
 "Hold on," I said, "that's too strong. 
 Didn't he say he'd given orders to his solicitor 
 to forward it from London?" 
 
 Ransom looked at me with a pitying glance.
 
 THE THOROUGHBRED 183 
 
 "Solicitor," he half sneered. "Yes, like hell 
 he has! Solicitors after him, but not his own. 
 Oh, you. You are extraordinary. Who don't 
 you believe in? Who don't you, by gad? Very 
 well, you'll see where your confidence and en- 
 thusiasm will land you some day. Into - 
 well, I'm making no bones about it into even 
 crime." 
 
 "Really," said I, not at all liking Ransom's 
 manner. 
 
 "See here, Ransom," I went on slowly, 
 "we've been good pals in the old quarter for 
 years ever since we first worked together at 
 Julian's, ever since the day you handed me, I 
 remember, a stick of charcoal, and said: 'Try 
 that. Yours is too soft.' Remember it? No, 
 you don't believe in Jason. I do. It's sim- 
 ple, isn't it? And when I believe in any one no 
 one on this side of the Styx can convince me I am 
 wrong. I owe my rent, so do you, with the 
 money we sent Jason to the races with. Don't 
 worry. Don't worry, I say. Jason' 11 pay, all 
 right. I'll bet you a very small beer that the 
 solicitor is on his way now from London with
 
 184 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 the amount. That's a princely way of squaring 
 a debt, and it would be just like Jason to send 
 him." 
 
 The day passed quietly, and neither Ransom 
 nor I mentioned Jason. We ordered a modest 
 dinner together at a Bouillon Duval, and spoke 
 of the prices that had been paid for some pic- 
 tures, just as if we might have bought them if 
 the other fellow hadn't. 
 
 Three days later we were again in the Pa- 
 risian Bar --Ransom and I --and just then 
 Jason came in. 
 
 You may not believe this, but "it's quite 
 true," as Jason says, and Ransom nearly had a 
 fit, and I was glad. Glad of Jason's arrival, 
 I mean, and Jason said: 
 
 "My dear old chap, I've just been to London." 
 
 And I said: 
 
 "How are things over there?" 
 
 And Jason said: 
 
 "Not bad. There's a new show at the 
 Gayety, and the roast at the Cock and Crown 
 is better cooked than last year. "
 
 THE THOROUGHBRED 185 
 
 And we said nothing, knowing that the cook- 
 ing of the English has no seasoning whatever. 
 
 "Well!" exclaimed Ransom pompously . "Any 
 more news?" 
 
 And Jason sat down. And he did a thing 
 which was simply splendid. He deposited nine 
 hundred francs on the table. 
 
 And Ransom said: 
 
 "My dear old boy!" 
 
 And I said: 
 
 "Thank you, old chap." 
 
 And Ransom sat there like a millionaire, a 
 sort of type who lends half a million to a town, 
 and gives them a library after it. In fact, 
 Ransom was silent, and for some moments I 
 think he was knocked out by the blow, and I 
 said to Jason: 
 
 st You've been to London." 
 
 And Jason said: 
 
 "Rather." 
 
 And he continued:. "Met an old friend of 
 mine. Hadn't seen him for years. Do you 
 see? A doctor quite a celebrated practi- 
 tioner with a fellow whom I knew in Africa.
 
 186 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 You see, old chap, I've marched across 
 Africa." 
 
 "Clear across?" 
 
 : 'Yes, clear across, from Zanzibar to Boma. 
 
 "How many times?" I ventured. 
 
 "Twice." 
 
 And Ransom said nothing. 
 
 "He had had rather a blow, this old friend 
 of mine," continued Jason. ;< You see, his 
 youngest daughter disappeared. Yes, she dis- 
 appeared," repeated Jason. 
 
 "How?" I asked naturally. 
 
 "Well, it happened in the country southwest 
 of Boma," Jason went on easily. "She was 
 the daughter of an old friend of my uncle's, and 
 we were obliged to question the camp the 
 servants, and so forth. And, you see, we sifted 
 the situation to the bottom, and there wasn't 
 a grain or even mind you, old fellow a 
 vestige of suspicion on the servants; so we con- 
 cluded that only a gorilla could have eloped 
 with her, for there had been one after the plan- 
 tains near us." 
 
 Ransom leaned forward.
 
 THE THOROUGHBRED 187 
 
 "And then?" I ventured, seeing Jason was 
 thirsty. 
 
 "Well, then, old chap," continued Jason, 
 "the father, you see, and the girl's fiance, and 
 the governor of the province, and myself, 
 tracked the beast. Oh, the evidence was con- 
 clusive." 
 
 Ransom leaned intently on his elbow cyni- 
 cally; and I lit a fresh cigarette. 
 
 "How far?" I asked. 
 
 "Two nights and a day," said Jason. 
 
 He coughed slightly through embarrassment. 
 
 "I hope this doesn't bore you, old chap," he 
 added, after a moment's hesitation. 
 
 "Go on," said I, and Ransom again leaned 
 forward, half convinced. 
 
 "You see, it happened like this," continued 
 Jason. "The young girl had been taken away 
 before sundown. She was remarkably pretty 
 for her years. Half the night we hunted for her, 
 but to no avail. It was not until daylight that 
 we struck the fresh trail of a gorilla, leading 
 southwest through the jungle rather awkward 
 going on account of the roots, which made a
 
 188 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 sort of trellis over the swamp that lay some 
 fifteen feet below, and which we came often 
 nearly slipping into. 
 
 "Finally, about noon, we managed to get 
 clear of the swamp, and, still on his track, we 
 entered a dry forest. Here we could follow the 
 beast far easier. He was carrying her in his 
 arms, for I found a bit of her calico dress torn 
 off in a thorn bush, at a yard's height above his 
 track; and every now and then we discovered 
 her tracks places where he had put her down 
 to rest. One of her feet was bare, the other still 
 held its shoe. Evidently the gorilla had not 
 wounded her, for we found no blood. There 
 have been cases, you know, where they have 
 been exceedingly careful of their captives.'* 
 
 "I can imagine the joy of the father/' I said. 
 
 "Rather!" said Jason. "I never knew a 
 pluckier chap than the fiance. I don't think he 
 spoke more than a dozen words during the two 
 days and a night we followed on the beast's 
 track. He just bucked up, mind you. I dare 
 say I could not have been as brave as that under 
 the circumstances. She was a beautiful girl,
 
 THE THOROUGHBRED 189 
 
 dark eyes, and hair that reached almost to her 
 knees." 
 
 "Go on!" I said, half brusquely, for I was ab- 
 sorbed in this strange story of Jason's. In fact, 
 spellbound and eager for the denouement. 
 
 "And you got him? And the girl was she 
 still alive?" inquired Ransom. 
 
 :< Yes," said Jason simply, "though she was in 
 a dead faint. The beast was squatting before 
 her as we crept up, and peeped through the am- 
 bush we had chosen. He had tied her to a tree, 
 stripping the centre of a peculiar big leaf from 
 which he made a cord that is strong as elastic; 
 and there he sat in adoration before his captive. 
 He had been careful when he carried her not to 
 touch with his great hands her flesh. She wore, 
 you see, a simple calico^ gown." 
 
 "Of what colour?" I asked. 
 
 "White," said Jason, coughing slightly. 
 "We gave the fiance the first shot. The beast 
 fell forward on to his great chest, and, strange to 
 say, he died with his eyes riveted on the girl. 
 She was unconscious when we released her, and 
 more or less in a coma for a week; but the gorilla
 
 190 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 had fed her and given her water, releasing her at 
 noon for exercise, and at night, that she might 
 sleep. She told us everything that had hap- 
 pened how careful he was not to wound her. 
 He was an old male, almost as tall as the average 
 man. I felt sorry for the poor old beast when 
 our shots struck him." 
 
 "Jason," I said, "you're amazing!" 
 
 "Well, you see, old chap, life is rather strange, 
 isn't it?" And he smiled. 
 
 Ransom took his leave. 
 
 He had to abruptly, and he held the guf- 
 faw struggling up within him until he reached 
 the door and slammed it back of him. 
 
 As the door closed on Ransom, I said: 
 
 "Do you know what I think of you? I'm 
 convinced you're a born liar. Those different 
 apartments of yours all bosh ! Where do you 
 really live?" 
 
 Jason's smile widened. 
 
 " In a small hotel. I'm quiet there for my work." 
 
 "Work?" I exclaimed. 
 
 ;< Yes, work ! You see, old boy, I have to work. 
 I'm a short-story writer, and I believe in
 
 THE THOROUGHBRED 191 
 
 "In trying it on the dog, eh?" I interrupted. 
 "So you chose me?" 
 
 "I dare say we won't quarrel over it, old 
 chap," he replied. 
 
 "Nonsense!" I said. "But the gorilla epi- 
 sode?" 
 
 "Oh, the gorilla story is true," said Jason, and 
 I saw a look in his eyes as if I had wounded his 
 feelings. 
 
 "Forgive me, old boy," said I. "I did not 
 mean to doubt you for an instant." 
 
 Jason knocked at my door only yesterday, so Marie told 
 me. He's a dead shot. I know this, for I shot with him 
 last October below Orleans in Sologne. He made three 
 separate doubles on partridges a magnificent perfor- 
 mance considering the high wind. The best gun in 
 France the Count C could not have done better; I be- 
 lieve in Jason.
 
 CHAPTER SIX 
 NATKA
 
 It was late this winter night when an irresistible desire 
 seized me to see life. I had been hard at work all day in my 
 studio beneath the roofs in the Rue des Deux Amis. So I got 
 out of my paint-stained corduroys, and late as it was got into a 
 dress coat and headed for Maxim's. F. B. S.
 
 CHAPTER SIX 
 
 NATKA 
 
 MAXIM'S was ablaze with light. As I left 
 the chill fog outside this raw midwinter 
 morning an hour old, and entered the warmth 
 and gayety within, the vermilion-coated gypsy 
 band swung into a spirited waltz a waltz ftiat 
 made one's midnight blood tingle. 
 
 "Pardon, Monsieur, s'il vous plait!" A vet- 
 eran waiter, hurrying with a silver bowl 
 of crushed ice and caviar, skilfully avoided 
 my elbow. At the table beyond, a Russian 
 archduke a towering giant with a blond 
 
 J95
 
 196 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 beard crashed his glass of champagne to the 
 floor. 
 
 The suave maUre d'hotel apologized. He had 
 served in St. Petersburg. 
 
 I strolled on down the corridor lively with late 
 suppers; past tables gay with jewelled beauty; 
 past fair arms, fair necks, and the easy laughter 
 of women forced to the rescue of their duller, 
 white waistcoated escorts. Young men blase at 
 twenty -three, old men young at sixty, immacu- 
 lately valeted old roues, connoisseurs of pleasure 
 at threescore and ten. On past smiles that lied, 
 smiles that told, the faint clean chink of gold, 
 given kisses and the impulsive pressure of idle 
 hands; past Beauty and her Beast, petty quarrels 
 and conspicuous forgivings; and now past the 
 band and into the generous square supper room 
 beyond, animated with the flash of froufrous, 
 silken ankles, and the glide of trim-slippered feet 
 impelled by that throbbing, irresistible waltz. 
 
 Toilettes of point lace, of silk, and of satin. 
 Blonde and brunette, rubies and pearls, white 
 teeth and scarlet lips, warm, lithe arms and 
 slender waists. The passing scent of violet and
 
 NATKA 197 
 
 mignonette. The odour of lily of the valley, 
 emeralds, dimples, and faultless sapphires all 
 whirling, eddying before the tables that seemed 
 to circle in turn before the eyes of the dancers 
 moving in a veil of aroma from fragrant havanas 
 and gold-tipped cigarettes. Eyes that gleamed, 
 and dreamed, and gleamed again in the game of 
 love; and grew devilishly bright under the spell 
 of sparkling, stinging golden wine, burning cold. 
 
 And a great wave of joy surged through me as 
 I took my seat and unfolded a spotless napkin, 
 for I saw that the world was still alive. 
 
 The waltz ended in a wail of strings. Fran- 
 gois, the mattre d'hotel with the smug smile of a 
 priest, bent an attentive ear for my order pad 
 and pencil in hand. 
 
 "A dozen Ostend, Frangois." 
 
 "Bien, Monsieur." 
 
 "And then a partridge en cocotte. You will 
 please see that there is a little thin, crisp bacon 
 of the English with the mushrooms." 
 
 "It is well understood, Monsieur." 
 
 "And a salad of endives with the partridge." 
 
 "Bien, Monsieur."
 
 198 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "Then we shall see for the rest." 
 
 " Tres bien, Monsieur. Monsieur is alone?*' 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 "Sec or demi-sec?" 
 
 "Brut, nineteen hundred." 
 
 He nodded, and was gone. 
 
 A moment later,, as I sat watching the entry of 
 three monocled youths and a slim blond woman 
 in an ermine opera cloak, I was conscious of a fair 
 white hand and arm stretched across my table. 
 
 "Bonjour/" came a frank, clear voice, and I 
 looked up. 
 
 "Natka!" I exclaimed as I grasped the fair 
 white hand a shapely, aristocratic hand with- 
 out a jewel. 
 
 "Ah! You nice Natka!" 
 
 I would have said more in my enthusiasm, but 
 she checked me with her eyes; and, as she seated 
 herself beside me at the vacant table to the right 
 touching mine, I caught sight of her companion. 
 As for his name it does not matter. He was 
 healthy, this young American, broad-shouldered 
 and sun-tanned; and his genial, clean-shaven 
 face suggested wealth and leisure.
 
 NATKA 199 
 
 As she unfolded her napkin, she leaned toward 
 him, and whispered something in his sunburned 
 ear, evidently in explanation of our meeting. He 
 nodded good-naturedly in reply, his elbows on 
 the table as he scanned the menu. Again Natka 
 turned to me, her clear, fearless, gray eyes study- 
 ing, for a moment, my own, and my own taking 
 in at a glance her handsome features the 
 sheen of her auburn air, and her tall, gracious 
 figure,which seemed to have been poured into her 
 gown of creamy rose point lace, adorned with a 
 single blood-red rose. The gown of a lady they 
 are rare. 
 
 "Ah! That is nice," she said, with a look of 
 ager interest. "You have made a success. 
 The wise little supper of a prince. Am I not 
 right?" She laughed deliciously. "I saw you 
 order it." She laid her hand with a friendly 
 pressure on my arm. "And I have seen last 
 year one of your pictures," she continued, with a 
 touch of friendly pride. "In a window on the 
 Rue Lafitte. They do not put one's pictures 
 alone in a window unless one has made a success." 
 
 "Success, my dear Natka? Oh, a very
 
 200 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 modest one, I assure you," I laughed in return, 
 somewhat embarrassed. "No, the truth is, I 
 have just sold a picture. The one you saw in 
 the window came back, and so I dropped in here 
 to rinse my eyes. We poor painters crave the 
 sight of luxury now and then; the spectacle of 
 expense once in a while. It is as gay here as 
 ever. I'm glad of that. Who is the girl in 
 green?" 
 
 She raised her clear gray eyes where my own 
 indicated, and gazed across the smoke-veiled 
 room. 
 
 "The little one with black hair and the white 
 aigret?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "It is La Belle Adele. She is with Cora de 
 Neville and the young Marquis de Tallefont. 
 You must have seen De Neville at the Folies 
 Marigny. She trains a prg with a little gilt whip. 
 It is quite stupid. You see young Tallefont 
 everywhere. His uncle is very rich. He is a 
 very horrid old man." And she turned to her 
 companion as my oysters and champagne were 
 served.
 
 NATKA 201 
 
 I had not seen Natka in months; indeed, not 
 since the Bal des QuatV Arts. She was strik- 
 ingly beautiful that night, for she wore the black 
 lace wedding costume of a Russian girl, with a 
 curious peasant's headdress of jewels, barbaric 
 rings, and her bare feet in sandals; and explained 
 to me that the gown itself was an heirloom from 
 her native Moscow. 
 
 It was the night we trundled Bardeau's little 
 model - - I forget her name, and only remember 
 her good humour from the Porte Maillot to 
 the entrance of the ball in a wheelbarrow. The 
 same morning, we savages of the Stone Age 
 and our captives went in swimming after the 
 ball in the fountain of the Rond Point. 
 
 She was as fascinating to-night as ever. The 
 same Natka, the same good comrade whose in- 
 telligence alone was a delight, for, like many 
 Russian women, she had at twenty-six years of 
 age acquired a fluent knowledge of English, 
 spoke French as well as a Parisienne, Italian 
 enough to have satisfied a poet of Verona, and 
 once, when a certain Spanish Don the friend 
 of a Russian nobleman, the brother of the giant
 
 202 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 who had crashed his glass to the floor came 
 to Paris, he insisted that Natka could not be 
 purely Russian, and must have had a Spanish 
 grandmother, for, as he explained, "her Sevillian 
 accent was remarkable." 
 
 The young American now craned his neck with 
 a nervous grin, and for an instant our eyes met 
 in forced recognition. Then he rose at Natka's 
 bidding, and we were duly presented. As we 
 reached over to shake hands, he grew quite red, 
 and said genially : 
 
 "Glad to meet you. Won't you join us? 
 Here, gar-son, take the orders." 
 
 But I alluded to my own supper forthcoming; 
 and mentioned to him that the Baroness Natka 
 Karezoff and I were old friends. 
 
 " Baroness ! " he blurted out, the grin widening. 
 "Say, Bill, don't kid me." 
 
 There ensued an awkward second a pause; 
 and we drank each other's healths from our own 
 separate bottles. After all, if he did not know 
 the truth about Natka Karezoff, I did. Even 
 an instant later, when the maitre d'hdtel ad- 
 dressed her as "Madame La Baronne," and the
 
 NATKA 208 
 
 archduke, still in the best half of his Cossack 
 exhilaration, stopped as he passed their table, 
 straightened soberly and bowed, it failed to 
 enlighten the one who had christened me Bill. 
 
 His geniality grew as he drained his wine; and 
 there flashed a twinkle in his blue eye as he 
 leaned over toward me. 
 
 "Bill," he confided, "I've got a thirst rare 
 enough to preserve in the Louvre, sailing that 
 slick old yacht of mine all day. Me for the sea, 
 all right, Natka' 11 tell you. Say, but we made 
 her hump fine and dandy. Quite a blow, girl, 
 eh? For an amateur, but she's game, Natka 
 is," he added, as the cellarman in his black apron 
 refilled his glass, crushing down a fresh quart in 
 its cooler. "All game, my boy," he declared, 
 with a pat of pride on her exquisite shoulder. 
 "Thinks nothing of standing to the wheel her- 
 self on a two-hour watch. Slipped her back 
 into Boulogne last night all by her little lone- 
 some, and not a reef in her. My sailing master 
 says to me, says he: 'There ain't one woman 
 in a million like mad am.' You'd orter seen 
 the Nargeala hustle. She flew, all right. Natka
 
 04 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 was at the wheel. My sailing master called it 
 epatante when we got into the lee of the break- 
 water. See here, you speak French. What's 
 epatante?" 
 
 "Out of sight," I explained. 
 
 "Good word, epatante out of sight! Gee! 
 He hit it!" 
 
 Natka laughed, not being able to grasp my 
 translation of slang. 
 
 "Well, I guess," he continued reminiscently, 
 kindling a fresh cigarette over the match Natka 
 held for him. "Bad hole round that break- 
 water. Whole tide of the Channel runs through 
 there like hell. Lots of rocks, son! Lots of 
 rocks! Orter see Natka in tarpaulins. Say, 
 she's great! Stands up and takes the salt, salt 
 breeze! Well, say, can you beat it? And nary 
 a whimper. Eh, girlie? Nary a whimper. 
 More oysters, Natka? Say, you're all right." 
 
 The lifted her eyes to a passing waiter. 
 
 "A dozen of Ostend quick!" 
 
 * ' Bien, Madame. ' ' 
 
 "No, my friend," Natka laughed, "you must 
 not get the ideas exaggerated of my bravery. I
 
 NATKA 205 
 
 did very little, really. It is he who is brave," 
 she confided in my ear. "Ah! It is fine to be 
 able to rely on some one in an emergency. Not 
 to fear, and to know what to do. Had it not 
 been for him in the big storm off Trouville 
 very well, I saw that. I was there. It was not 
 gay. He was magnificent. He knew the Nar- 
 geala better than his crew." 
 
 " How long have you been over? " he asked me, 
 filling her glass, the wine seething over her pro- 
 testing fingers. 
 
 "About sixteen years," I returned. 
 
 " You don't say! Say, Bill, if I'd been stowed 
 away in this insane asylum for sixteen years, a 
 free 'bus would take you to and fro to see the 
 pansies growing over Willie's grave by now. 
 Chicago for me on the long run! We got every- 
 thing there they got here only better." 
 
 The band broke into a two-step, and again 
 the room was in a whirl. Presently they left 
 me to dance, and, on their return, the archduke 
 stopped to chat with Natka in Russian, and he 
 roared with laughter over something, and bowed 
 to us formally in recognition as he took his leave,
 
 206 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 much to the relief of the one who had called me 
 Bill. 
 
 "He is very tall, is he not? " said Natka, turn- 
 ing to me. "Good old Romanoff! He was so 
 good to my peasants poor people. In my 
 country house near Moscow, you know what I 
 did? Very well. I had built a large room for 
 my peasants a sort of great hall, and with 
 big fires at each end, and long tables of good 
 clean wood. Do you not love the smell of clean, 
 fresh wood? I adore it! And there they could 
 come and have a good dinner when they pleased 
 whole families. Ah, it is not easy for them; 
 they are so cruelly poor, and so ignorant; and in 
 winter it is terrible always the snow. They 
 are like overgrown, unhappy, children. And 
 they are so grateful." 
 
 "And the house near Moscow?" I ventured, 
 pressing her hand in reverence. 
 
 "Ah, my dear friend ! " 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders, and a little sigh 
 escaped her. 
 
 "Gone," she said simply. "My dogs, too. 
 I should not have minded the house. There is
 
 NATKA 207 
 
 an end to everything that is dear, that becomes 
 dear. But my dogs, they were my children." 
 
 For an instant she lowered her fair head, cover- 
 ing her eyes with her white, ringless hands the 
 hands that had steered the Nargeala safe into 
 port. Then she turned to amuse the one who 
 had called me Bill. 
 
 Presently she turned to me, and said softly: 
 
 "My house? Very well. An old friend of 
 mine was in great trouble, so many rubles he lost 
 at that stupid gambling. No, you don't know 
 him. His mother was old, and his sister very 
 sad, for she wished what you say? to be 
 married." 
 
 And, without waiting for me to reply, she 
 turned again to her companion, and helped him 
 to a fresh slice of pate de foie gras. 
 
 For some moments they talked earnestly to- 
 gether. She was radiant now, and I saw he was 
 happy in his genial, democratic way. 
 
 I could not help being convinced that he was 
 a good chap; and, in comparison to the blase 
 types and seasoned viveurs in the room, far more 
 to be relied upon. He who was plain-spoken,
 
 208 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 sincere, and generous to a fault qualities, I 
 knew, which appealed to Natka and without 
 a vestige of pose about him; that artificial varnish 
 which any Latin woman of the world accepts as 
 skin deep. In case of real trouble, I should have 
 chosen the Chicagoan. 
 
 Maxim's was now full; and, with the breaking 
 of the fog-chilled dawn without, it grew more and 
 more hilarious; and there was some dancing at 
 four-thirty that did not happen at two. 
 
 It was the hour evidently that Natka had 
 been waiting for. Her sudden change of manner 
 piqued my curiosity. She ran her eyes over the 
 room, and seemed satisfied. It was the hour 
 when what becomes of the remaining gold louis 
 in one's pocket does not much matter. 
 
 Was she, like the girl in green, going to dance 
 on her table? She could dance, when the mood 
 seized her, with all the inborn grace and fire of 
 a Russian. It would not have surprised me, 
 knowing her impulsive temperament. But she 
 soon dispelled my presentiment, for she spoke 
 quietly to a passing waiter, who returned with 
 a plate and napkin. What next? I wondered,
 
 NATKA 309 
 
 as she skilfully folded the napkin in the form 
 of a slipper, placed it on the plate, and, without 
 a word, rose from her seat; the one who had 
 called me Bill staring at her as soberly as he 
 could. 
 
 "Natka!" I exclaimed, my hand on her arm. 
 "What are you going to do? Come, dear, sit 
 down." 
 
 But she only smiled, and said quite seriously: 
 "Don't move, either of you." 
 
 And I, despite my puzzled wondering, drew 
 aside my table from her own to let her pass. 
 
 "Natka!" I repeated, and so did he; but she 
 paid no heed to either of us, and crossed the 
 room. 
 
 Then, to my amazement, beginning at the 
 farthermost table in the corner, she made the 
 round of Maxim's with her plate. The few 
 words she addressed to each table were inaudible 
 to me; but I could hear her clear "Thank you" 
 as francs and louis were slipped within the dam- 
 ask slipper. She continued down one side and 
 up the other of the corridor, and so on back to 
 our side of the big room.
 
 210 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 The slipper was coming our way now a 
 golden slipper, shaded by four crinkled bank- 
 notes of the Bank of France. 
 
 "Well, I'll be durned!" muttered the sun- 
 burned one from Chicago. He had grown as red 
 as a poppy, and the collar of his dress shirt had 
 wilted from perspiration. 
 
 The golden slipper was now between us. 
 
 "It is for the little maid of Lucille Davries, 
 who has been frightfully burned," Natka ex- 
 plained. 
 
 Without a word, the one who called me Bill 
 felt in the pocket of his piquet waistcoat, ex- 
 tracted a hundred franc note, and tucked it in 
 the slipper. 
 
 'Thank you," she said, and turned to me. 
 
 I made a mental note of my bill, and con- 
 tributed the remainder in my possession, modest 
 as it was. Then followed our questioning as she 
 regained her seat between us. 
 
 "Whose maid did you say? How burned?" 
 
 "By an alcohol lamp," Natka explained rap- 
 idly, as she poured the contents of the slipper 
 into her jewelled purse and snapped the clasp
 
 NATKA Sll 
 
 shut. "Poor little thing! Is it not terrible? 
 They say she will live. She is horribly disfigured 
 - a cripple for life. Gaby de Villiers told me 
 as we came in. It happened Sunday, heating 
 the curling irons for her mistress." 
 
 "Who is Lucille Davries?" I asked. 
 
 "A demi-mondaine. I do not know her. She 
 is a brute. Her boudoir is burned out. She 
 flew into a rage, and would have turned the poor 
 little thing out of doors had not the police 
 arrived and taken her to the hospital. Ah, 
 Dieu! Can you imagine such a beast? The girl 
 is barely seventeen an orphan. Gaby gave 
 me her name. She is at St. Louis, in the emer- 
 gency ward. It shall be that I go there to- 
 morrow." 
 
 She had spoken rapidly, and with such in- 
 tensity that the colour crept to her temples. 
 
 It was bright daylight when we left Maxim's. 
 
 "Bravo!" they shouted as the Baroness Natka 
 Karezoff left the room. "Bravo! Bravo!" 
 until her tall, handsome figure, wrapped in its 
 cloak of soft gray fur, disappeared within the 
 coupe of the one who called me Bill.
 
 212 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 As I left them that morning, and walked back 
 to my studio beneath the roofs in the Rue des 
 Deux Amis, the streets were deserted, save by 
 an occasional sleepy garcon de cafe hurrying 
 home to bed and his family. At the corner of 
 the Rue Mogador, I encountered a ragpicker's 
 pushcart, its dingy sacks piled high and roped. 
 The fat haul of the night's pickings was guarded 
 by a girl of sixteen, strong as a terrier, and 
 dressed from the gutter, her dishevelled hair dull 
 with dust; the black dog, chained beneath the 
 cart, spick and span in comparison. It is a short 
 walk in Paris from jewels to rags. Often it is 
 but a step. 
 
 As I continued on past the Trinity, and so on 
 up Montmartre, my thoughts were on Natka 
 and the boy from Chicago. To be young in 
 Paris, good-looking, with plenty of money, and 
 fascinated by a woman of Natka's experience! 
 What more could the owner of the Nargeala 
 desire? 
 
 That he appreciated her good qualities as a 
 comrade I was certain, and yet there lurked 
 within him, I could see, a barrier of suspicion.
 
 NATKA *18 
 
 This was natural. It is, moreover, racial, and 
 typical of nine out of ten Americans of his kind 
 in Paris. They are amused as long as a 
 woman amuses them to the point which they 
 have stipulated to themselves. Offer them 
 a really serious amour, and they fight as shy 
 as a close-fisted bank president refusing a 
 loan to a pretty widow. This is largely due 
 to inexperience and a meagre knowledge of 
 Latin women. 
 
 If he had known Natka as well as I knew her, 
 he would have done well to have turned the for- 
 tune of his youth over to her intact for safe- 
 keeping. She would have saved most of it for 
 him out of the heyday of his yachting youth, and 
 returned to a sou the remainder of the amount in 
 trust on the day of his inevitable departure for 
 his native land. 
 
 He, however, did not know this, and, had I 
 suggested it to him, would have first smiled 
 grimly at the idea, and, secondly, pigeonholed 
 me in his mind as a crook. 
 
 That Natka seriously liked him I was also con- 
 vinced. Fond of him, even. In love with him?
 
 814 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 Euh! That would be putting it a little strong. 
 Natka had seen enough of love. What appealed 
 to her now was comradeship, which is more last- 
 ing than volatile love. Moreover, I knew she 
 was sincere, or she would never have known the 
 Nargeala or its owner. 
 
 Weeks passed. Months, and I saw nothing of 
 them, and heard nothing, save an announcement 
 in the Paris edition of a New York journal, whose 
 maritime news is reliable, that the Nargeala had 
 touched at Capri bound south. 
 
 One afternoon in May, in the Bois, she flashed 
 past me in her coupe, drawn by a superb pair of 
 Russian horses. A glimpse of her only and she 
 was gone. And I stood there beneath the aca- 
 cias, feeling none too happy over this unex- 
 pected and tantalizing glimpse. 
 
 Again I saw her leave the Opera Comique; but 
 I lost sight of her in the crowd hailing their car- 
 riages. Then, one night in September, I was 
 standing in the Gare St. Lazare, awaiting the 
 arrival of the Caen express, and met the Chica- 
 goan face to face.
 
 NATKA 215 
 
 He was pale and haggard, and moved toward 
 me, picking nervously at his watch chain. 
 
 "Hello!" he stammered as we shook hands, 
 his hollow, sunken eyes glancing furtively about 
 him, with the fear in them of a cornered 
 owl's. 
 
 The hand on the watch chain trembled visibly. 
 The whistle from an engine shrieked, and he 
 started, jerking around on his heel from sheer 
 nervous depression. 
 
 " You've been ill," I ventured. 
 
 His lips tightened shakily. 
 
 "Come and have a drink," he returned gloom- 
 ily, his eyes for the first time meeting my own. 
 
 "I'm waiting for a train due any minute," I 
 said, by way of refusal. "It's a long time since 
 I've seen you; not since that night in Maxim's 
 with- -" 
 
 But I did not mention her name, not knowing 
 what had occurred in the meantime. 
 
 He snapped open his cigarette case, lighted a 
 plain Maryland, hurriedly took a long, trembling 
 whiff, and cast it aside, his eyes again searching 
 the station and the crowd streaming along the
 
 216 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 transatlantic train that lay beside us ready for 
 Cherbourg. 
 
 "Excuse me," he murmured, and pulled him- 
 self aboard the Cherbourg express, glanced at 
 his hand luggage in a second-class compartment, 
 reappeared, and joined me. 
 
 "Sailing? "I asked. 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 "And the Nargeala? I heard she touched at 
 Capri." 
 
 He looked at me blankly. 
 
 " She's no longer mine," said he. Then, with 
 the ghost of a smile : " I'm hard hit." 
 
 For a moment he was silent, gazing at the 
 smouldering butt of his cigarette, his mouth 
 twitching. 
 
 "Say!" he blurted out. "I want you to do 
 me a favour. If you ever see Natka again - - I 
 well I want you to tell her I understood. I 
 want you to thank her for me for all she did for 
 me. I said good-bye to her this morning. She'll 
 understand it coming from you. I want you to 
 tell her I understood. Just say understood. And 
 thank her for what she did for me at Monte
 
 NATKA 217 
 
 Carlo. I was a fool. I wouldn't listen to her. 
 They'd have got it all if it hadn't been for her. 
 She begged me on her knees. It's a rotten 
 game," he stammered hoarsely; " a rotten game." 
 And his eyes filled. " I wouldn't care if it wasn't 
 for dad. He's been hard hit in wheat he's 
 done for." 
 
 I slipped my arm beneath his own, and he 
 seemed grateful. 
 
 "You'll tell her? You won't forget?" he 
 pleaded as we paced before the train. 
 
 : 'You have my word," I replied. "What is 
 Natka's address?" 
 
 "I don't know. She's gone away," he said, 
 in a weary voice. "She wouldn't tell me where. 
 She made me promise I wouldn't try to find her." 
 
 The guard was slamming shut and locking the 
 compartment doors. 
 
 "En voiture!" he shouted, red with impor- 
 tance. 
 
 There was a backward bump and a forward 
 tension. He stretched out his hand, and I 
 grasped it as he climbed in past the knees of a 
 lady's maid and a valet in a steamer cap.
 
 218 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "Tell Natka I understood" he murmured as 
 he closed the door, and the express slipped away 
 on her journey as the headlight of the incoming 
 train from Caen glared into view. 
 
 All that I have described happened twelve 
 years ago; and, although Maxim's was still 
 ablaze nightly until gray dawn, the old life of 
 Paris had undergone a change. It had grown 
 less intime, and more commercial, and many of 
 the familiar faces of old comrades had disap- 
 peared. 
 
 So had Natka Karezoff; and, though my daily 
 life led me over the same trail through Bohemia 
 it had led me for years, I heard or saw nothing 
 of her; and gradually she became a vague mem- 
 ory of the past. My old haunts were now filled 
 with the new generation. Fashions, too, had 
 changed. It was an age now of the lamp-shade 
 hat and the aeroplane. Even Montmartre had 
 been affected by the epidemic of up-to-date 
 modernism. The French-monocled youth now 
 shot by, sunk in the barrel seat of his hundred 
 horsepower racer. The girl beside him, im-
 
 NATKA 219 
 
 prisoned in her hobble skirt, interlarding her 
 French with English sporting terms. All these 
 were in vogue now, and the old life was 
 gone. 
 
 In Montmartre, close to the Place Pigalle, is 
 an American bar. Most of the ladies who 
 frequent it at midnight possess a marquise tur- 
 quoise ring on their manicured forefinger, and a 
 fox terrier on a scarlet leather leash, who is 
 loosed in the early morning hours to gambol over 
 the dusty carpet with other fox terriers he knows 
 but slightly; and, as fox terriers will be fox ter- 
 riers, is shrilled at by its owner in the lamp- 
 shade hat for his disobedience. And she 
 slides off her bar stool, and, catching him by 
 the scruff of the neck, proceeds to chastise 
 him accordingly as she had read in her dog 
 book. 
 
 The room to-night was less lively in its forced 
 gayety than usual, being the evening after the 
 steeplechase at Auteuil, and life to most of its 
 habitues seemed less worth living than ever. 
 
 I sat on the end of the row of high stools be- 
 fore the bar talking to Emile, the barkeeper, over
 
 220 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 the non-appearance of that absent-minded friend 
 of mine, Joinville, the painter, who had stipulated 
 the bar a half hour past as a meeting place; and 
 I was still waiting with my back to the fox ter- 
 riers and their gossiping owners. Never wait 
 for Joinville, he has the memory of a moth. 
 
 As Emile drained a sweet Martini through a 
 tea strainer, I accidentally touched the elbow of 
 the woman on the stool beside me. 
 
 "Pardon, Madame," I apologized, without 
 turning my head. 
 
 Emile slipped the wet Martini to the third 
 stool, added a straw, and wiped his fat pink 
 hands. 
 
 As I reached for a match, my eye glanced over 
 the figure of the woman next to me whose elbow 
 I had touched. The broad-brimmed hat of 
 rough blue felt that hid her face was faded, out 
 of shape, and trimmed with two artificial roses 
 that had once been red. She sat with her elbows 
 on the bar, her body wrapped in a worn ulster, 
 the pocket next to me torn down at the seam. I 
 caught sight now of her ringless hands, and made 
 a mental note of her age. Then I glanced at her
 
 NATKA 221 
 
 feet resting on the rung of the stool, and saw 
 that the yellow shoe next to me had been 
 patched. 
 
 Then, for some unaccountable awkwardness 
 on my part, over went the remnant of my bottle 
 of soda, and she tilted back away from the drip, 
 and turned. 
 
 "Ah, Madame!" I exclaimed. "I demand a 
 thousand pardons." 
 
 The smile with which she had straightway 
 forgiven me now faded to a swift, searching look, 
 and I gazed at her at her gray eyes, at her 
 auburn hair streaked with gray. 
 
 "Natka!"Icried. 
 
 " Mon Dieu!" she replied wonderingly. 
 
 Gradually her face became radiant, a flush 
 crept to her temples. She faced me, putting 
 out both her hands. I grasped them, and held 
 them trembling in my own. 
 
 "Natka!" I repeated, in my astonishment. 
 
 "Hush!" she whispered. 
 
 "Let us get out of this. I feel faint. Come! 
 Come now ! " she murmured. 
 
 She slipped from her stool, and, before the rest
 
 222 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 of the room had remarked it, we were in the 
 street. 
 
 "Stand here in the shadow," she pleaded 
 faintly; and in the shadow she fell to sobbing, 
 while I patted the shoulder beneath the worn 
 ulster until she ceased crying. And when she had 
 stopped before the mirror of a closed cake shop, 
 and wiped her tear-stained face and adjusted the 
 faded hat, she bravely smiled. 
 
 "Come," I insisted, "and have some supper. 
 We must talk. To Tabarin's," I suggested, 
 halting as we turned dow r n the Rue Pigalle. 
 
 "No, not there," she whispered. "They 
 would not admit me in there." She leaned close 
 to me, gripping my arm, still whispering a strange, 
 hoarse whisper, as if she were afraid of her own 
 voice. "Ah, I am so glad! So very happy!" 
 she breathed. 
 
 Again I insisted on a restaurant. She stopped, 
 and said in the mysterious voice of a child sug- 
 gesting an adventure: 
 
 "Do you know what I should like? Some 
 sauerkraut," she whispered eagerly, her voice 
 gaming strength. "Come, I will show you."
 
 NATKA 223 
 
 She laughed nervously. 
 
 " Oh ! Such good sauerkraut they have there. 
 It is not far to walk at the Lion D'Or. You 
 are not angry? Tell me, you are not angry? It 
 was not nice of me to ask. It is not far. No, no, 
 not a fiacre ! It is foolish to spend for that. 
 Your hat is old. You are poor. It is not dear, 
 the sauerkraut seventy -five centimes the por- 
 tion; and they give you plenty. And four sous 
 to the waiter you shall see." 
 
 And at the Lion D'Or I wrung the truth out 
 of her over the steaming sauerkraut. The de- 
 tails much of which I refuse to write. It was a 
 story from her lips, a simple story of kindness to 
 others massive in its truth, inevitable in its 
 end; and it was the bitter end that she now en- 
 dured without a murmur. 
 
 It is less hard to find a man hungry than a 
 woman. The Archduke Romanoff was dead; 
 and, when I suddenly recalled and gave a mes- 
 sage from the past, she "understood"; and I 
 feared for a moment she was again about to cry. 
 
 "You saw him? Yes, it is true what you say. 
 You saw him that night when he went away?"
 
 824 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 she demanded, with all the intensity of her being. 
 "And he told you I would understand. I tried 
 so hard to make him understand to under- 
 stand that he must go, that he must never see 
 me again. Ah, my poor Dick ! My poor Dick ! " 
 
 And for the third time she hung eagerly on my 
 words, making me repeat slowly all that he had 
 said, even to his manner and the way he looked 
 a wreck. But I did not tell her how far his 
 nerves were gone, clear as the memory came 
 back to me now. 
 
 "You loved him," I said when she had grown 
 calmer; and there came a strange, broken look 
 in her eyes, and her tired face dropped in her 
 hands, her nails pressing her flushed temples. 
 
 For some moments she did not speak. 
 
 "Then one lived," she said slowly, looking 
 up, "and now it takes so long to die. I tried to 
 save him," she went on, brushing away her tears. 
 "That last week at Monte Carlo, I drew from 
 my Paris bank, I wired to Petersburg, to poor 
 Romanoff, that was the hardest and what I 
 had sent for went with his own. Ah, Dieu, it is 
 so cruel, so stupid that horrid gambling. It
 
 NATKA 225 
 
 was that last night of baccarat that we quarrelled. 
 He was blind with anger, and out of his head. 
 He accused me of being a thief, for I had taken 
 from him fourteen hundred francs. It was well 
 I did; it paid his voyage home." 
 
 The two girls opposite our table in the corner 
 with pink plumes had gone. We were alone. 
 The shirt-sleeved proprietor was yawning as he 
 carved a ham. 
 
 It was gray dawn. 
 
 Natka glanced at the clock hanging above the 
 desk. 
 
 "My train will leave in an hour," she said. 
 'You must not wait, you are tired." 
 
 "Train! My dear old friend, and to where, 
 may I ask?" 
 
 She was her old self again, warmed by the 
 food, comforted, no doubt, by the hazard of our 
 meeting and our long talk of the past. 
 
 "To Argenteuil," she announced. "No? Did 
 I not tell you? We have had so much to say. 
 Yes, that is where I live Amelie and I. You 
 remember Amelie who was burned? " And then, 
 with the same mysterious, childlike eagerness,
 
 226 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 she whispered again: "We have a little house. 
 Oh, very small ! Three rooms, and a roof ! " She 
 laughed as she described it. "And then there is 
 the garden for my chicks. They are adorable - 
 so fuzzy so little. They are a great care; but 
 one must live, and in winter our eggs bring three 
 sous apiece." 
 
 She mistook the gaze in my eyes. 
 
 "Forgive me," she said. ;< You are tired. It 
 will not be long now to wait for my train. You 
 must leave me and go to bed." 
 
 "No," I protested. "I shall leave you, and 
 you shall go to bed. Here is my studio key. It 
 is the same brown door at the head of the stairs. 
 You see, I have been faithful to my nest beneath 
 the roofs. I have not moved. There is the big 
 divan in the little room off the studio. Do you 
 remember?" 
 
 But she hesitated. 
 
 "Amelie will worn-. And, besides, it is not 
 right for me to disturb you." 
 
 "Nonsense!" I returned. "Vantin is at 
 Juvisy. He has the studio below me. He left 
 me his key."
 
 NATKA 227 
 
 She hesitated no longer. 
 
 I waited until noon, entered my studio by the 
 back door, and rapped gently at her own. No 
 response. 
 
 "Natka!" I called; but the room beneath the 
 roofs was silent. 
 
 I turned the knob, and pushed the door ajar. 
 She was lying on the divan fully dressed. The 
 collar of the worn ulster turned up over her hair, 
 damp from the stupor of profound slumber, a 
 rug thrown over her feet. I tiptoed in and leaned 
 over her, listening to her regular breathing. 
 
 Poor dear! She was no longer beautiful; but 
 she was beautiful to me. Her small, wrinkled 
 leather purse lay on the table. It was indiscreet 
 of me; but I pressed its flat side with my thumb. 
 Two solitary sous grated together within. 
 
 And there I sat, and watched the Baroness 
 Natka Karezoff until long after one, when she 
 stirred, awakened with a start, rubbed her eyes, 
 remembered, and smiled "Bon jour" 
 
 You may hunt through Argenteuil to-day, but 
 you will not find her, for she lives in a comfort-
 
 228 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 able, modest little apartment in Montmartre. 
 Neither the street nor the number concerns 
 you. Certain painters had passed the plate 
 - for Amelie. Natka would not have it other- 
 wise.
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN 
 "GABY"
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN 
 "GABY" 
 
 HHHE rain, this raw April morning, thrashed 
 * over my studio roof in the Rue des Deux 
 Amis and sent the chattering Parisian spar- 
 rows to shelter in the warm corners between the 
 chimney pipes that creaked and whined as their 
 hooded tops boxed the compass with every fresh 
 gust of wind. Miniature torrents gurgled in 
 their rushing course beneath the worn gables. 
 The water swept in sheets over my dust-dimmed 
 skylight so there was no need to draw its curtain 
 to screen that good little model of mine, Marie, 
 
 231
 
 232 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 who was posing beneath it close to the stove, 
 in fact half her trim young figure bathed in 
 its rosy glow. 
 
 There had been two welcome knocks at my 
 studio door this dreary morning: at nine the 
 confident, gentle "tap-tap" of Marie's small 
 gloved hand, and half an hour later the rousing 
 thump of Vautrin's big fist that made the panel 
 tremble. 
 
 "Entrez!" I shouted to this lucky dog of a 
 painter just back from the Riviera, where for 
 two months he had been basking in sunshine. 
 His big voice broke the silence of the studio as 
 he entered. 
 
 "Bonjour,mon enfant!" he called to Marie. 
 
 " Bon jour, Monsieur Vautrin," returned Marie, 
 lifting her dark eyes with the smile of a gamine, 
 though she held her pose firmly. 
 
 Some of the lazy sunshine of Mentone and 
 Monte Carlo, of Nice and Cannes, was still in 
 Vautrin's bones, for he stopped halfway across 
 the studio floor filled his big chest with a deep 
 breath straightened to his full height shut 
 his eyes tight, and yawned without apologizing.
 
 "GABY" 233 
 
 There is something about this irrepressible 
 bohemian, with his merry gray eyes, his strong 
 features and his hair, which is sandy and curly, 
 that resembles a Scotchman. His father was 
 French, however, and his mother English, and 
 both languages he speaks as easily as he laughs. 
 
 "What news, mon vieux?" he asked at the 
 end of the yawn, glancing at my canvas. 
 
 "Nothing of much account," said I; "a note 
 from Duclos wants me to do a pastel of Gaby 
 de Villiers for his June number of Paris en Scene. 
 
 "GabydeVilliers,eh?" 
 
 "She's at the Folies Bergeres," I continued. 
 "In the New Revue. She's the new beauty. 
 Ever seen her? Tall brunette. Was in the Re- 
 vue last season at the Scala; small part I believe 
 at the Gaiete Rochechouart the year before." 
 
 "Smaller part than that before," remarked 
 Vautrin dryly as he felt for his pipe in the pocket 
 of his paint-stained corduroy trousers. "She 
 used to bring my wash fact when I had 
 that old barrack of a studio in the Rue Lepic. 
 Used to keep her fete day shoes in my wood- 
 box; her mother was a vegetable woman and
 
 234 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 didn't believe in luxuries. Pretty as the devil 
 when she was a kid. Dugay made a portrait 
 of her. Remember it at the Salon? Full-length 
 figure with a green scarf - - that was Gaby. It's 
 amazing how the stage reaps its beauty from the 
 gutter." 
 
 "Nearly all," I added absently, as I blocked 
 in Marie's young head and shoulders, while Vau- 
 trin cast his burnt match clear of my best studio 
 rug, and, having first carefully removed Marie's 
 clothes from the divan, much to that little 
 model's relief, for her hat was on top of them, 
 flung himself full length among the threadbare 
 pillows and declared that no one not actually 
 starving could work on a day like this in this 
 sacre light, when you could not tell the difference 
 between burnt umber and Vandyke brown. 
 
 "Just left Stimson at Monte Carlo," Vautrin 
 announced, as I chucked on a fresh shovelful of 
 coal and went back to my canvas. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "Little old Stimson you remember him 
 Stimson, who had the white yacht and the blue- 
 tiled villa at Trouville?"
 
 "GABY" 235 
 
 "Oh, y-e-s; Stimson the fellow whose yacht 
 we used to paint?" I laughed. 
 
 "Same Stimson," chuckled Vautrin. "Re- 
 member when we used to put in the yacht and 
 get old what's-his-name, the jeweller on the 
 corner of the quay, to stick it in his window. 
 Then Stimson would come along and buy it. 
 Thought a lot of that yacht. Sort of a pet with 
 him. Remember ? ' ' 
 
 "As if any of us could ever forget him," I 
 murmured, recalling a blue Monday when Stim- 
 son had saved me from bankruptcy by way of 
 the same jeweller's window. "So you saw Stim- 
 son, eh? How does the little old thoroughbred 
 look?" 
 
 "Hasn't changed a bit," continued Vautrin 
 with his rapid enthusiasm when anything or any- 
 body interests him. "Short and dapper and 
 polite as usual. Gray as a rat, of course. But 
 then he must be getting close to sixty. I tell 
 you, little old Stimson is one of those unassum- 
 ing philanthropists you take off your hat to; 
 and the soul of modesty with all his wealth. 
 Still going the pace. Told me he never had a
 
 236 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 sick day in his life when you think what Stim- 
 son has lived, bought, and seen, in his quiet 
 way. Never had an enemy either. 'Wouldn't 
 have 'em,' he used to tell me when you come 
 to think even of the people he's helped, and I 
 mean by people any one he happened to come 
 across in distress. He's had plenty of oppor- 
 tunity at Monte Carlo. He's one of the old 
 guard down there. Remembers Monte Carlo 
 when it began, and the only way you could get 
 there was by carriage or a tub of a boat from 
 Nice." 
 
 Snap went a stick of charcoal, and I nodded to 
 Marie to rest. 
 
 " Swindled, of course," Vautrin went on. "He 
 expected that; bamboozled by touts, lied to by 
 vauriens! 'always believed in a hard-luck story,' 
 he used to say, and that nobody was really bad. 
 Lot of philosophy in that, eh? You see it's al- 
 most a creed with Stimson to be generous to the 
 needy and tolerant to the fool. 
 
 "'Haven't we all got our faults?' he used to 
 say. 'Why, certainly.' Never gambles him-
 
 "GABY" 237 
 
 self. Just likes to stroll around the tables and 
 watch the game and is satisfied with the best 
 cooking in France, a light dry champagne, and 
 a pleasant good morning. Sort of religion with 
 a maltre d'hotel to take good care of Stimson. 
 There's something pathetic in his brightening 
 smile and the twinkle in his small, keen eyes when 
 he's pleased when any little favour that is 
 sincere is shown him. 
 
 " ' Well, now, wasn't that nice of them?' he'll 
 remark quietly when the maltre d'hotel has saved 
 his favourite table for him on a rush day. He's 
 saved a few people himself, Stimson has even 
 from suicide. I never knew a demi-mondaine 
 yet who didn't lose her "head when her last louis 
 was gone. You'll see the sudden terror leap 
 in their eyes then." 
 
 "I've seen it," I interposed as I sharpened a 
 fresh stick of charcoal. "It isn't a pleasant 
 sight. Their last louis gone, return ticket 
 pawned, and every mail bringing a fresh threat 
 over the debts they have left in Paris." 
 
 "Of course. Same hopeless old story," Vau- 
 trin continued. "Then Stimson would come to
 
 238 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 the rescue quietly behind her chair. All he'd 
 say in his low, punctilious voice, that always 
 seems to have a note of hesitancy in it through 
 sheer timidity, was, * Well, well, little girl' (he 
 called 'em all little girls, whether they were nine- 
 teen or fifty-nine); 'well, well, that's too bad. 
 As I say, there's good and bad luck, only you 
 never know which way it's coming.' That was 
 a little joke of his. He had four little jokes like 
 these," Vautrin explained, " and he'd forgive you 
 if you didn't laugh at any of 'em. ' Well, well, 
 little girl,' and she'd go white as chalk and 
 tremble so I've seen the croupier lift his quick 
 eye to the chef de partie in case she fainted. 
 They do not like a scene down there, you know. 
 "I remember when I was a boy,'" Stimson 
 would proceed quietly- 'the same thing hap- 
 pened to me,' and he'd slip five hundred or even 
 a thousand francs in her lap and she'd get to her 
 feet and leave never with Stimson she had 
 too much respect for him for that, but she was 
 more grateful to him than some women are to 
 the man who has just saved them from drown- 
 ing."
 
 "GABY" 239 
 
 For some moments Vautrin lay smoking in 
 silence. 
 
 I had known Vautrin to eulogize before 
 generally apropos of some new-found model of 
 his or some "fairer-than-all-the-rest" he had met 
 by chance and had fallen under the hypnotic 
 spell of her fascination. His eulogies, however, 
 were confined to heroines, not heroes ; glorifying 
 for my especial benefit a seasoned old viveur 
 like Stimson was new to me. 
 
 "Good old thoroughbred!" I exclaimed, 
 breaking the silence, while Marie slipped an old 
 ducking coat of mine from her shoulders and 
 resumed her pose. 
 
 Vautrin slowly rose on his elbow and laid 
 aside his pipe. His continued silence made me 
 for the moment forget my drawing and look up 
 at him questionally. 
 
 "See here! This is strictly entre nous" he 
 blurted out as he caught my glance. "If 
 I've been extravagant in my praise of Stim- 
 son now see here, I know you you're 
 a mule when it is a question of persuad- 
 ing you to paint anything or anybody when
 
 240 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 the subject does not precisely fit your sense of 
 the artistic." 
 
 "Me?" 
 
 "Yes, you. I'm not a portrait -painter or I 
 wouldn't be here talking like a parrot." Vau- 
 trin sat up and flung out his long hand with a 
 vibrant gesture. "You might be rich by this 
 time if you hadn't been as stubborn as a mule 
 about refusing to paint people who didn't ap- 
 peal to you. You're half the time painting some 
 aesthetic girl for nothing, simply because her dis- 
 position, or complexion, or the poetry in her 
 eyes, or the high lights in her hair captivates 
 your senses of the artistic. Now, don't go up in 
 the air." 
 
 "Never was calmer in my life," I returned. 
 " What's up ? Out with it ! But I warn you if it's 
 a case of some fat bourgeoisie's wife you've met 
 who insists on being portrayed in her wedding 
 dress with all the jewellery of twenty years of 
 married life festooned upon her, I balk." 
 
 " Wrong ! ' ' cried Vautrin. " What I want you 
 to do is to paint Stimson yes, Stimson just 
 little old Stimson; just as he is, and you won't
 
 "GABY" 241 
 
 charge him a sou for it either. Hasn't he given 
 enough to others? Who's ever given him any- 
 thing? And he's got his head set on having him- 
 self painted." 
 
 "Of course I'll paint him," I declared. 
 
 "Oh! he was very discreet about it. That's 
 why I say it's entre nous" 
 
 "I'll do my level best," I promised. "Just 
 Stimson that's the idea. By George! I'll 
 make a salon picture of him!" 
 
 " No, you won't," replied Vautrin. " Stimson's 
 portrait is destined for a boudoir, not a salon." 
 
 "You don't mean to say little old man Stim- 
 son's in love? Who with, mon Dieu? And at 
 his age!" 
 N " You're not to mention it if I tell you?" 
 
 I raised a hand, grimy with charcoal, under 
 oath. 
 
 " Gaby," announced Vautrin. 
 
 "The devil you say? So Stimson's in love 
 with Gaby?" 
 
 "Madly; and when an old-timer like Stimson 
 falls in love it's serious. 
 
 "Poor Stimson!" I sighed.
 
 242 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "That's not our affair," said Vautrin. "Be- 
 sides, if Gaby pleases him and now, mon 
 vieux, as you're not such a mule as I've known 
 you to be, both of you come to luncheon. Eh, 
 la gosse," he called to Marie, "a dejeuner!" 
 
 "Hold on!" I cried. "The glasses, Marie, 
 and the bottle of port. Let's drink little old 
 Stimson's health." 
 
 "He'll be here next week," said Vautrin as 
 we stood in our overcoats beside our empty 
 glasses while Marie, who had sipped her port 
 slowly, now hurried into her things. 
 
 The second act of the winter's Revue at the 
 Folies Bergeres was in full swing as I passed the 
 following night through the small iron door lead- 
 ing to the stage. 
 
 "Mademoiselle de Villiers?" I inquired. 
 
 "Third dressing-room to the right, Monsieur, 
 on the second flight," confided the red-haired 
 callboy as he side-stepped out of the way of 
 three scene shifters carrying a papier-mache 
 throne, dodged past a girl acrobat in purple 
 tights wiping the rosin dust from her hands, and
 
 "GABY" 243 
 
 sprang up the spiral iron stairway as I followed 
 him. 
 
 " Mesdames en scene!" he shouted along the 
 heated corridor leading to the dressing-rooms, 
 his sharp command echoing down the narrow 
 hallway whose vitiated air reeked of warm flesh, 
 grease-paint, and perfumery. 
 
 Here and there along the line he threw a door 
 open and shouted his command within. He 
 knew the lazy ones, and his responsibility was 
 great. 
 
 I sat watching Gaby while she patted the 
 swansdown puff over her firm white neck and 
 arms, watched her intently while she gave a final 
 touch of blue to the lids of her languorous sensual 
 eyes eyes that seemed to-night deep violet 
 and unfathomable as a cat's, their pupils di- 
 lated and brilliant with belladonna. Studied her 
 superb figure at my ease while I blocked in her 
 salient lines in my sketchbook, the tilted lev- 
 elled mirror reflecting her blue-black hair glit- 
 tering with jewels; studied the curve of her lips 
 half open in repose, and the pearly whiteness of 
 her exquisite teeth. In the silence of the stuffy
 
 244 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 dressing-room hung with froufrous and tights, 
 with the jewelled headdresses and gay bodices 
 that the Revue required, I glanced up now and 
 then as I drew, at her maid, an earnest, black- 
 eyed girl whose active fingers were busy with 
 the top hook of her mistress' corsage; nothing 
 could have been in stronger contrast than this 
 honest peasant girl hooking up Folly. 
 
 This adorable devil who once had brought 
 Vautrm's wash, and had kept her fete day shoes 
 hid in his wood-box, was no longer the same 
 being. Even her skin was metamorphosed to 
 warm ivory. She must have now and then re- 
 called her youth as an accident, like a nightmare 
 or a bad dream. Her beauty alone linked with 
 a will, as irresistible as her lips, had reached for 
 her the gamut of luxury. Briefly, she was 
 physical perfection, well gowned, well fed, well 
 jewelled. Even old Parisians, seasoned con- 
 noisseurs of the demi-monde, stopped to admire 
 her as she passed in her smart victoria. What 
 more could she desire? A true friend, poor but 
 honest. She would have laughed at you. 
 
 "Tell Duclos I shall want a column with the
 
 "GABY" 245 
 
 portrait," she remarked without turning her 
 head as I rose to take my leave. 
 
 " Bonsoir, Monsieur." 
 
 " Bonsoir, Madame," I returned as she bent 
 to rouge her lips. 
 
 "Friday if you wish," she added. "I shall 
 not be free to pose for you before. You know 
 my address 59 bis, Avenue du Bois." 
 
 "It is understood, Madame," I replied, clos- 
 ing the door behind me and descending the spiral 
 stairs, crowded now with a bevy of gray doves 
 in pink satin slippers, with Eve at my elbow, 
 and Adam, a fat, perspiring comedian, with his 
 wig in his hand, at my heels. I was conscious 
 of a strong odour of peppermint. Adam was 
 chewing a cough-drop, one of which he gener- 
 ously tempted Eve with as I regained the busy 
 stage. As I opened the small iron door leading 
 to the auditorium I drew back to make way for 
 a short, dapper figure whose gray hair was 
 shadowed by an opera hat. 
 
 "Ah, pardon, Monsieur," he exclaimed, lift- 
 ing the opera hat as we nearly collided. 
 
 "Pass, I pray you, Monsieur," I returned, and
 
 246 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 as I closed the iron door I saw him half turn with 
 a puzzled look as if he vaguely remembered me, 
 but I doubt if he did. I swung the door ajar and 
 watched him nimbly ascending the spiral stairs. 
 
 It was little old Stimson. 
 
 Now do not for a moment imagine that Gaby 
 had received me to-night out of that camara- 
 derie that exists among artists. Gaby is not 
 given to receiving poor painters from the sheer 
 delight of their unremunerative company. A 
 full page in Paris en Scene was, however, well 
 worth opening her door to. As to her opening 
 her door to Stimson, that was quite another 
 story. She had received me to-night with a 
 certain imperious and cold disdain in keeping 
 with her sullen beauty, and had motioned me to 
 the plain kitchen chair beside her dressing-table 
 - the same chair that Stimson now occupied to 
 Gaby's entire satisfaction, and by far the most 
 expensive seat in the house, judging from the 
 three strings of perfect pearls I had indicated 
 in my sketch. 
 
 Had Stimson reached his dotage to have be- 
 come so hopelessly fascinated by this woman in
 
 "GABY" 247 
 
 the depths of whose glorious eyes there lurked 
 danger, and whose smile was that of a woman 
 who knew well how to dominate her slaves? I 
 wondered on my way home that night. 
 
 Within ten days the pastel of Gaby was 
 finished; within a fortnight Stimson's portrait 
 was well along, and we had become good friends. 
 
 "Just put me anywhere," he had remarked 
 at the first sitting. ''This I call positively 
 ridiculous," he had added as I lifted a big cathe- 
 dral chair on to the model-stand. ''You know 
 I haven't even had a photograph taken in twenty 
 years," he laughed as he took his seat, "but you 
 see " Then he hesitated in his embarrass- 
 ment and grew a little red until I got him chat- 
 ting over the changes in Paris and the old life at 
 Monte Carlo; and his small eyes would twinkle. 
 
 It was not until the fourth sitting that he com- 
 plimented me on the pastel of Gaby and con- 
 fessed to me that his portrait was destined for 
 the same lady. After that there were no se- 
 crets between us only a most difficult state 
 of affairs apropos of my promise to Vautrin upon 
 the morning I finished the portrait and declared
 
 248 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 to Stimson that not under any consideration 
 would I accept a sou for the canvas. 
 
 "What?" cried Stimson. "You mean to 
 
 say " he stammered. "Why, I won't have 
 
 it. I I should feel mortified beyond words. 
 Come, be reasonable. You know when I was a 
 boy my father taught me about well, a 
 fan* bargain. Now you just fill out this check, 
 and I'll feel happier." 
 
 "But you don't know what a delight it's been 
 to paint you," I insisted; "besides, it is I who am 
 indebted to you." 
 
 He looked up in surprise. 
 
 "Ah, you don't remember," I laughed, "but 
 you saved my life once all of eight years ago, 
 at Trouville." And I confessed to him the inci- 
 dent of the jeweller's window and his pet yacht. 
 
 For some moments he looked thoughtfully 
 at the floor, twirling his eyeglasses, which he 
 seldom wore. 
 
 "That was the little Gull," he said slowly. 
 "I've got the Narvalha now. She's being over- 
 hauled and will be ready to cruise in June." 
 
 He glanced up with a kindly smile. "Do me
 
 "GABY" 249 
 
 another favour," said he. "You and Vautrin 
 come and spend a month or so aboard with me. 
 "We'll cruise where we please." 
 
 Two months had slipped by on board the 
 Narvalha, cruising along the Italian coast, and 
 both Vautrin and myself were convinced we 
 should never do any more work. The life 
 aboard the Narvalha was not conducive to pro- 
 ducing much else but an appetite, the coma of 
 idleness, and an utter disregard for the future. 
 It is amazing how quickly the habit of luxury 
 can be acquired. The old working life in Paris 
 now seemed to us like a vague memory of the 
 past, and we grew to wonder how we had sur- 
 vived its hardships along the byways of ne- 
 cessity. There were memories now of sparkling 
 sunshine and the cool shadow of the awning on 
 the af t-deck memories of jolly luncheons and 
 still gayer dinners in the cozy saloon of the 
 Narvalha, whose interior was as carefully made 
 as the inside of Gaby's jewel case. There were 
 moonlight nights when the big steam yacht lay 
 white and still as a sleeping gull on a silver sea,
 
 250 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 and we watched the lights twinkling from shore 
 and listened to the distant music of some strange 
 port. 
 
 Gaby had grown as dark-skinned as a Sicil- 
 ienne, her coat of tan lending more glory to her 
 eyes eyes which were now given to Gonzalez 
 and beneath whose dark lashes it was easy 
 enough to read her fascination for this far too 
 good-looking young Spaniard we had picked up 
 at Naples. I may even say rescued, for from 
 certain indications both Vautrin and myself 
 were convinced it was high time for Gonzalez to 
 put to sea. How many hearts he had broken 
 on shore was difficult to say. They might, how- 
 ever, have been as numerous as his debts. In 
 Naples we met him by chance at a late supper 
 after the theatre. It seemed he was an old 
 friend of Gaby's, and his ecstasy at meeting 
 her again was intense. His gestures were rapid 
 and effusive, as are Spaniards'. From the moment 
 his black eyes gleamed in recognition and he 
 rose from his table, advanced to ours and, baring 
 his perfect teeth, smiled, bent, and lifted Gaby's 
 jewelled hand to his lips, accepted the chair be-
 
 "GABY" 251 
 
 side her, won Stimson's good-humoured con- 
 fidence, and was withal so altogether amusing 
 until dawn, treating Gaby with such profound 
 respect beneath the gayety of his stories and the 
 clever varnish of his perfect manners, that his 
 invitation as a guest on board the Narvalha Vau- 
 trin and I saw was a foregone conclusion. More- 
 over, Gaby, with the imperiousness of her beauty, 
 insisted, and there was nothing for Stimson to 
 do but to invite him to cruise with us. 
 
 Since Gonzalez came on board, Gaby had 
 changed for the worse, and if I had been the owner 
 of the Narvalha, I would have locked up the 
 piano and the champagne. Even MacFarlane, 
 the skipper, who had spent years aboard pri- 
 vate yachts, began to grumble in his red beard. 
 MacFarlane was a man who had seen hard ser- 
 vice in many strange waters hi his life and had 
 run the gamut of the sea's cruelty. The raw 
 danger in the plain old ships he had sailed in be- 
 fore he became a crack skipper of private yachts 
 had been far easier to weather than the intri- 
 cate social difficulties he had experienced among 
 sailing millionaires. It is true, is it not, that
 
 252 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 there is often more danger lurking around a din- 
 ner table of a yacht in port than aboard a strug- 
 gling craft with a shifted cargo fighting her way 
 under her last rag? Moreover, MacFarlane 
 was a man who dreaded the fog worse than a 
 hurricane. There was something significant in 
 this apropos of the veil of secrecy developing be- 
 tween Gonzalez and the lady of the ship. In 
 the grim inhospitality of the open sea there was 
 nothing a man like MacFarlane feared more 
 than conspiracy. He had a big liking for Stim- 
 son and would have sailed him half around the 
 world, I honestly believe, for nothing. He drew, 
 however, a large salary. No more able sailing 
 master existed. Nothing escaped him. 
 
 It was as MacFarlane feared at dinner 
 that the trouble began. 
 
 The details of the affair on board the Nar- 
 valha on the night of the 4th of August, 1909, 
 have been so erroneously cited by the press that 
 I intend to put down here, as simply as I can, 
 my personal impression. 
 
 It was Gonzalez's last night on board. In
 
 "GABY" 253 
 
 the morning he would be on his way to Spain, and 
 yet, despite the last evening before his departure, 
 Gaby's good humour all through the dinner was 
 a relief. She was the Gaby of the Folies Ber- 
 geres to-night. Everything appeared to strike 
 her humorously. She laughed between pauses. 
 Women are experts at this. 
 
 Stimson sat in his accustomed chair at the 
 head of the table, chatting briskly with Vautrin 
 and myself. We had long ago reached the cof- 
 fee and cigarettes. Gonzalez was seated at the 
 piano on Stimson's left, while Gaby sat opposite 
 our host, her elbows on the table, her chin in 
 her jewelled hands, and her eyes wandering to 
 Gonzalez as he played and sang to her snatches 
 of the love songs of his country. 
 
 I left them thus at ten minutes to midnight and 
 went on deck for a whiff of air. I remember the 
 hour ten minutes to twelve distinctly, for 
 as I left the saloon I glanced at the clock between 
 the two doors, one leading to Stimson's cabin, 
 the other the door that led into the companion- 
 way to the deck stairs. Gonzalez was still play- 
 mg when I reached the deck. Suddenly the
 
 254 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 piano and the tenor voice ceased as abruptly as 
 if they had been stifled. Possibly two minutes 
 elapsed while I stood leaning over the rail in 
 the moonlight watching the lights from shore. 
 Then I was conscious of a leaping step back of 
 me, and Vautrin sprang across the deck and 
 gripped my arm. 
 
 "Quick," he gasped. "There's hell to pay 
 down there ! " And before I could question him, 
 he drove me by the back of the neck, forcing 
 me down the narrow flight leading to the sa- 
 loon. The first voice I heard was Gaby's. 
 " You lie ! " she screamed. " You lie ! " 
 Then MacFarlane sprang down the stairs past 
 us, his broad shoulders blocking the way. At 
 that instant over his left shoulder I saw a blind- 
 ing flash; simultaneously the sharp report of a 
 revolver set my ears ringing and my heart in my 
 throat. I was the second to reach the saloon 
 after MacFarlane, who was bending over Stim- 
 son. I saw him tear the collar of his dress 
 shirt open; then I turned my head. Gaby stood 
 against the table like a woman turned to stone. 
 She stood there with dilated eyes staring at us.
 
 "GABY" 255 
 
 Gonzalez crouched beside the piano. Then I 
 saw Stimson's revolver drop from Gaby's hand 
 to the floor. Stimson groaned as MacFarlane 
 raised his head. 
 
 "Where?" asked Vautrin hoarsely. Mac- 
 Farlane raised a red-wet hand from Stimson's 
 side. "Through the ribs, damn her," muttered 
 the skipper. 
 
 Gaby stood still as if petrified. Gonzalez 
 made a cringing, terrified attempt to speak. 
 By this time the first mate and four seamen had 
 leaped down the stairs and into the saloon. 
 The mate stood over Gonzalez. One seaman 
 picked up the revolver, the three others sur- 
 rounded the statue by the table; then I saw her 
 slip slowly fainting to the floor. 
 
 All this had happened with astonishing rapidity. 
 
 MacFarlane now lifted the unconscious Stim- 
 son in his arms and passed with him into his cabin. 
 
 "Dead?" I ventured as MacFarlane laid him 
 on the bed. 
 
 The skipper shook his head, and, calling to the 
 mate, bid me leave. 
 
 Vautrin had lifted Gaby to a chair. She had
 
 256 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 come to her senses and was now screaming in 
 hysteria. 
 
 "Ah! mon Dieu! Ah! mon Dieu!" Gon- 
 zalez kept repeating, beating his hands to his 
 temples. The mate returned, forced him to his 
 feet, drove him into Vautrin's cabin and, closing 
 the door, locked it from the outside. 
 
 I crossed to Stimson's door and looked in at 
 the ashen face on the bed. For an instant he 
 opened his eyes. 
 
 "Don't try to speak, Mr. Stimson," said Mac- 
 Farlane as he parted his lips with his thumb and 
 poured a cup of brandy down the wounded 
 man's throat. 
 
 It was not until nearly noon that the Italian 
 authorities came on board. An investigation 
 was unavoidable, and what they found lay in a 
 crumpled wad behind the small upright piano. 
 In the crumpled wad was a half -burned cigarette. 
 The wad consisted of ten thousand lira in bank- 
 notes belonging to Stimson. The cigarette had 
 burned through three of the banknotes. The 
 cigarette was Gonzalez's. 
 
 It was not until nearly five o'clock that Stim-
 
 "GABY" 257 
 
 son again regained consciousness and the Italian 
 physician gave us some encouragement. 
 
 The whole dastardly affair had been planned 
 by Gaby, who had stolen the money from where 
 it lay in the drawer of the desk in Stimson's 
 cabin. She had passed it to the Spaniard while 
 he sang. Stimson's quick eyes had discovered 
 her and denounced her. In the scene which 
 followed she got his revolver, lost her head, and 
 in her sudden rage had shot him. All this she 
 confessed at the trial. 
 
 It was months before Stimson recovered, yet 
 not once did a word again escape his lips con- 
 demning the woman. 
 
 All these tragic events happened nearly 
 three years ago. Last winter I passed through 
 a cafe in Montmartre looking for Vautrin a 
 cafe where we met often for an aperitif. As I 
 glanced over the tables a woman in the shadow 
 of a corner raised her eyes to mine over a small 
 beer eyes that stared at me as if she had seen 
 a spectre then were lowered and hidden under 
 the brim of a hat flaunting a faded plume.
 
 258 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 It was Gaby! And neither of us uttered a 
 word as I passed out into the fresh air. Then I 
 hesitated and turned back over the threshold, 
 greasy with the slime of the street, to say a 
 humane word to Folly. And she told me before 
 Vautrin entered, in the voice of a ghost, that 
 Gonzalez was still in jail, beginning an old sen- 
 tence for forgery, and that she had been released 
 the month before. But I did not mention 
 Stimson, hungry as I knew she was for news, for 
 I knew him to be at rest in a peaceful villa at 
 Cannes, where he occupies himself a little with 
 golf and largely with early bedtime hours. 
 
 As Vautrin and I often say, the honesty of so 
 good and faithful a little soul as Marie can never 
 be too much appreciated. 
 
 Just such tragedies as the above add the shadow to the 
 sunshine of Paris life; and it is also true that one as over- 
 generous as Stimson is generally the victim. F. B. S.
 
 CHAPTER EIGHT 
 UNDINE
 
 It is not very gay the life at times. To leave these good 
 friends of mine in Montmartre and to be ordered across the 
 high seas. But that unfortunately is what has happened. 
 Ah, yes! I know well enough that dreadful Gare du Nord 
 and the waiting train and Marie is always so brave at the 
 train, which makes it att the harder. F. B. S.
 
 CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 UNDINE 
 
 T DEMAND a thousand pardons, Monsieur, 
 but you will be very amiable to give me a 
 little fire." 
 
 "With pleasure, Monsieur," he returned, in a 
 hollow, trembling voice as he offered me the 
 glowing end of his cigarette. 
 
 "Thank you, Monsieur infinitely," said I 
 as we simultaneously lifted our hats. 
 
 "It has been a pleasure, Monsieur," he added 
 hoarsely as I glanced up again at this soldierly, 
 erect old Frenchman whom I had halted among 
 
 Ml
 
 262 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 the crowd of Americans thronging the quay of 
 the Gare du Nord before the steamer special, 
 waiting to run to Boulogne. 
 
 During my rapid glance as we parted, his whole 
 personality struck me forcibly. Never had I 
 seen so dignified and yet so tragic a countenance. 
 During that brief instant there crept to the 
 wrinkled corners of his cavernous blue eyes the 
 vestige of a forced smile; then the smile died, 
 and there remained only the mask of his mel- 
 ancholy features; the high, broad forehead 
 framed by his silver-gray hair; the prominent 
 cheekbones, and the homely mouth and chin, 
 shielded by a moustache of iron-gray, beneath 
 which his jaw closed firmly. 
 
 I turned for a second glance as I strode past 
 him; and, to my surprise, I saw the cavernous 
 blue eyes were swimming in tears. Yet he 
 walked erect, his hands thrust behind him - 
 alone. Never, I repeat, had I seen a sadder- 
 looking man than this singularly dignified old 
 Frenchman, who spoke to no one, and carried 
 himself erect in his grief. Surely, I thought to 
 myself, he must have a wife, friends, children, or
 
 UNDINE 263 
 
 even a sweetheart, despite his evident sixty odd 
 years, to wish him "bon voyage" upon so im- 
 portant a journey as from Paris to New York. 
 And yet, as now and then my eyes followed him, 
 although the black minute hand of the station 
 clock had crawled close to the hour to leave, he 
 continued to pace the quay alone. A stranger 
 among strangers, whose civilization it was safe 
 to say he knew nothing of, and whose language 
 it was as equally certain to venture he could not 
 speak. 
 
 "All aboard!" shouted the railway guard. 
 The short, pigeonlike young woman and her 
 fat mate were still blocking the narrow corridor 
 as I squeezed my way past to my seat, and she 
 kissed him again and again, and pleaded tear- 
 fully: 
 
 " Abey, take a safe ship back, unt come soon." 
 "Sure!" said he, pushing his wine-coloured, 
 satin-lined derby free from the beads of per- 
 spiration. "Sure, Lena, de best is none too 
 goot. Dot's right. Eh, Ike?" 
 
 And Ike, standing by, agreed, and added: 
 "Veil, Abey, I guess dis is goot-bye for sure.
 
 264 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 Say, if you was to see Klotz, tell him ve von't 
 touch dem fancy Lyons silks until he caples. 
 Unt, Abey, listen. Tell him, also, dot dem 
 babies' dress goods dot Lieber vired for is a bum 
 lot." 
 
 "All aboard!" insisted the red-faced guard, 
 slamming and locking the compartment doors. 
 
 The pigeon was in tears, being the last to es- 
 cape, while the young American girl, leaning out 
 of the corridor window, and whose auburn hair 
 was as neat as her trim blue tailor-made, told 
 the lingering young man who had brought the 
 long-stemmed roses, and whose repartee oscil- 
 lated between, "Ha! Ha! Really!" and "I 
 think it was awfully clever in you," "that the 
 Cathedral of Cologne has the Parthenon stung 
 to death." 
 
 Possibly she had a sneaking idea when she 
 said it that she would some day be married to 
 the young man in the historic edifice with the 
 hornetlike quality. She was young, and im- 
 aginative, and besides, "Popper," she told the 
 lingering one, "gives me everything I ask for." 
 
 Again, as I squeezed my way through this
 
 UNDINE 265 
 
 transatlantic menagerie, my mind reverted 
 to my dignified old Frenchman. I began 
 to wonder what he thought of it all. He, 
 whose melancholy presence had impressed 
 me most, and whom I frankly felt sorry for, 
 although we had so far only exchanged the 
 common courtesy of fire to an unlighted 
 cigarette. 
 
 A fluttering of handkerchiefs, the bleat of a 
 horn, a hiss of steam, and we slipped out of the 
 big station, past the waving crowd of friends, 
 past a bunch of crushed violets in a pool of train 
 grease, and out into the warm sunshine of La 
 Belle France. 
 
 Was my old Frenchman safe and aboard? I 
 wondered. 
 
 Presently I discovered him in the car ahead 
 in the middle seat of a crowded compartment, 
 sitting with his arms folded beneath his old- 
 fashioned valise with an embroidered cover; and 
 he sat there, staring straight ahead of him out 
 of those sad, hollow eyes of his; Le Petit Pari- 
 sien, which he had been reading, refolded care- 
 fully on his knees.
 
 266 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 Again it was evident to me he could not under- 
 stand a word of English. 
 
 Boulogne is always busy unloading fish and 
 getting more; the steam trawlers bring them in 
 by tons. Below the clambering, picturesque 
 old town in the great basin of the port, flanked 
 by its giant quays, were massed to-day the fleet 
 of fishing boats in from the night's catch - 
 sails of Van Dyck brown, rich as bitumen; sails 
 of salmon and of pale emerald green. 
 
 There is nothing that lies afloat or ashore in 
 Boulogne that is not made for hard service; 
 spars reenforced with iron, tough brown nets, 
 giant anchor chains, and heavy hawsers. The 
 big-booted fishermen are of the grizzled pirate 
 type, and the women are pretty a race apart. 
 Over the coal-dusted and greasy cobbles click- 
 clack their neat sabots. They have trim feet 
 and slim ankles, these active Boulognese. 
 
 To-day the quay was alive. Sturdy-chested 
 Norman horses strained in their traces, hauling 
 drays loaded with crates for Rio, trunks for New 
 York, and cases of salt herring. On the quay's
 
 UNDINE 267 
 
 edge of granite lay, spilled in their slime, piles 
 of sharks, the cheapest cast-off of the catch. 
 The heavy-booted fishermen lurched by, glad 
 to be home, touching elbows with every type, 
 from the outcast of the port to the immaculate, 
 brass-buttoned cockney steward off the Chan- 
 nel boat; while the donkey engines growled and 
 the teamsters swore. 
 
 Through this moving mass along the quay, 
 the Americans were now picking their way to 
 the fat tug lying in wait ready to run out to the 
 liner. Beyond the tug's bow lay a veil of 
 pearly mist, a gauze hiding the open sea. The 
 air was soft and caressing, and as still in the 
 misty sunlight as the oily-green water beneath. 
 
 I looked about me over the tug's deck, and 
 there sat my old Frenchman well aft and alone. 
 He was leaving France, the land he loved, and 
 I saw him run his eyes over the quaint roofs of 
 the rambling old town towering above him, as 
 if he longed to catch one more glimpse of the 
 fair green land beyond. 
 
 The babble of the train was now a thing of the 
 past. Few spoke on the waiting tug, and most
 
 268 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 of the women had taken to the cabin, smelling of 
 lukewarm tea and bilge. Up on the bridge, 
 the French captain, a short, thick-set little 
 man, with the eye of an eagle, paced back 
 and forth, listening for the liner's signal, his fat, 
 sun-tanned hands thrust deep in the pockets of 
 his pea-jacket. 
 
 Half an hour passed in silence. I turned to 
 the agent of the line, an old friend of mine. 
 
 "She's late, Bob," I ventured. 
 
 He nodded. "Head winds from Rotterdam, 
 no doubt," he declared. "Hark!" 
 
 "Voo! Omm! Oomm!" boomed faintly from 
 beyond the veil. 
 
 "There she is," said we. 
 
 The captain spat out the butt of his cigarette, 
 and bellowed to his mate below: 
 
 "Eh, ben!" he roared. " Sacre nom (Tun 
 chienl Depeches-toi la-bas!" 
 
 Like a flash, the tug became animated. For- 
 ward and aft hawsers were cast loose. The bell 
 in the engine room clanked sharp and insistent 
 to the accompaniment of the "Sacre bon Dieus" 
 and the "Voyons!" and "Sapristis!" from the
 
 UNDINE 269 
 
 bridge; and we headed through the mist for the 
 waiting liner. 
 
 I turned to catch sight of my old Frenchman. 
 He was standing erect, with his back to me, his 
 handkerchief to his eyes. 
 
 Through the sea-dimmed porthole struggled the 
 gray light of morning, now that half a day and a 
 night lay between us and Boulogne; and without 
 rushed the sweeping, mountainous water, the surg- 
 ing tops of whose grim craters the head wind de- 
 capitated, hurling the salt spray viciously on high, 
 while she plunged and lifted this good Dutch ship, 
 taking the onslaught, rising in her giant strength 
 with the tons of water that smashed over her 
 bow, smothering her lower deck, scurrying, swish- 
 ing, bubbling, chuckling down her scuppers. 
 
 It was a morning when her woodwork whined 
 and creaked as she rolled and rose cheerful 
 old morning in a dog's sea when the smoking- 
 room lights were lit for early habitues; merry old 
 morning when your bathtub emptied itself over 
 your shoulders, and your sizzling sausage, and 
 crisp, grilled ham, and sputtering eggs have a
 
 270 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 tendency to slide, and are stopped by the table 
 rack, which hurts your wrist bones. 
 
 "Bad vedder!" laughed Fritz, who had kept 
 my griddle cakes hot. It was a morning when, 
 as late as ten, not a fountain pen was in use in 
 the stale "Social Hall," and the lounges held 
 huddled forms under home-knitted shawls, and 
 the empty glass of lemonade, rolling beneath the 
 unidentified dead, played hide and seek with the 
 empty cup of bullion until both were sent off to 
 the pantry by the deck steward. 
 
 I began to wonder how my old Frenchman was 
 weathering it. 
 
 The next morning broke in crisp, sparkling 
 sunshine. The sea ran high under a blue sky, 
 and, with the brilliant sunlight and a steadily 
 rising barometer, the ship became cheerful. My 
 old Frenchman was not long in getting on deck. 
 He passed me as I stood lighting my pipe; and 
 again, as he made the turn of the long, clean 
 deck, he paced rapidly by me, his hands clasped 
 behind him, staring ahead of him with that same 
 stolid erectness I had noticed at the Gare du 
 Nord. A desire seized me to speak to him, and
 
 UNDINE 271 
 
 yet I hesitated. I felt he wished to be left alone. 
 I watched him discreetly; and not once did I see 
 his gaze meet the eyes of a passenger; and more 
 than once I thought I detected him turn his head 
 away from the women he passed. Just a slight 
 turn of the head, scarcely noticeable ; but it was so 
 evident, nevertheless, that I became interested. 
 
 For the third time he had made the round of the 
 deck, and was drawing abreast of me. He had 
 passed me by a few yards, when I saw him stop, 
 turn, seem, for a moment, to hesitate, and then, 
 as if he had made a sudden decision, he strode 
 toward me, and lifted his cap. My hand went to 
 my own. I saw he was struggling to speak. 
 
 "Forgive me, Monsieur," he began. Again 
 his voice trembled, though I saw he was bravely 
 trying to control it. 
 
 "Bonjour, Monsieur,'* I replied, in greeting. 
 
 He made an effort to smile, but the smile died, 
 and he continued in a low, gentle voice: 
 
 "You you will, I pray, forgive me, Mon- 
 sieur, but" he put his hand wearily to his fore- 
 head " I am, Monsieur, as you must see, a miser- 
 able and most unhappy man. It is because of this,"
 
 272 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 he resumed slowly, in a broken voice, "that I have 
 taken the great liberty to speak to you." 
 
 The hollow eyes now swam with tears which 
 he was unable to control. 
 
 'You speak French, Monsieur?" he resumed 
 faintly. "It is good to hear it. I who am alone 
 among strangers, whose language I cannot under- 
 stand." 
 
 "Ah, my poor Monsieur!" I exclaimed when 
 he had finished. "There is no one who can bet- 
 ter understand than myself. Come, let us take 
 a turn together. You shall see. It will do you 
 good. The good promenade, as you say in 
 France, rinses the eyes, changes the ideas." 
 
 He fumbled for his card. 
 
 "Permit me," he said, as he offered it to me 
 while I searched for my own, and read: 
 
 JEAN PAUL PAVIGNON 
 
 As we turned through the windy passage to star- 
 board, he halted abruptly, and gripped my arm.
 
 UNDINE 273 
 
 "I I cannot go there," he faltered. 
 
 I looked at him in surprise. 
 
 "But there's less wind," I explained. 
 
 "I know," he replied. "It is, however, where 
 the ladies go. If if you do not mind, Mon- 
 sieur " 
 
 " Certainly, Monsieur, since you do not wish it." 
 
 "I cannot pass them," he interposed, in a 
 voice that was half audible. "I I am in- 
 capable of passing a woman now without weep- 
 ing. My wife is dead." 
 
 "My poor Monsieur!" I exclaimed. 
 
 There was no mistaking now either the reason 
 or the genuineness of his grief. He shook vis- 
 ibly as he gripped a stanchion, steadying him- 
 self. 
 
 " You see what a pitiful state I am in," 
 he resumed, after a struggling pause. "I am 
 incapable of controlling my emotions. Since 
 my wife died, seven years ago, I have not known 
 a single happy hour. I am alone. Do you 
 know what it means to be alone, Monsieur? It 
 is like a living death." 
 
 He gazed at me out of his streaming eyes, his
 
 274 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 hand still gripping the stanchion. He paused 
 again to steady his voice. 
 
 "And now I must go to your country to the 
 New Orleans," he resumed. "I have inherited 
 a little property there. Oh, a very modest one. 
 I am, as you see, poor, but there have been legal 
 complications, and there was no other way but 
 to go myself." 
 
 He said this thoughtfully, awed by the mag- 
 nitude of the journey he had undertaken, alone 
 as he was. 
 
 From that moment a desire seized me to cure 
 this unfortunate man of his grief. The task was 
 not an easy one. To rescue him from the depths of 
 neurasthenia to which he had fallen I knew would 
 occupy most of my waking hours on board. 
 
 One does not endeavour to cheer up those who 
 are in the depths of despair by taking them to a 
 problem play. One turns to vaudeville, and I 
 knew where my real vaudeville existed in the 
 smoking room, as usual. I may say, I have 
 rarely sailed without discovering within this 
 sanctum of nicotine, cards, and more drinks, an 
 excellent troup, ready to amuse you from 11
 
 UNDINE 275 
 
 A. M. until midnight. True, ladies were ad- 
 mitted; but I was even willing to run the risk, 
 knowing, as I did, Monsieur Pavignon's tragic 
 antipathy to their presence. 
 
 "Allans! Allans!" I coaxed, gripping him by 
 the arm. "Come, let us go to the smoking 
 room. A little vermouth will do neither of us 
 any harm. We shall have a good chat, quite as 
 if we had met on the boulevard," I added, as he 
 hesitated, until by sheer insistence I led him, 
 still protesting, toward the smoking-room door. 
 
 "Not a word of the past," I said to him as I 
 jerked open the heavy door by its brass ring. 
 "Not a word of the past! You promise me?" 
 
 He nodded sadly in acquiescence, and the 
 mask smiled faintly. 
 
 "After you," I said, though he graciously drew 
 back while I held the door open until he had 
 crossed its brass threshold. 
 
 We found a table in a snug corner next to the 
 bar, where the sandwiches were freshest, and 
 the vermouth warmed him; or was it the feeling 
 of sudden companionship that, little by little, as 
 we talked, brought a new light into his hollow
 
 276 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 blue eyes, and loosened the seams in the tragic 
 mask until there crept the warm blood into his 
 cheeks; and at last a timid smile, as if at first it 
 had feared to assert itself. 
 
 It seems that both this good Monsieur Pavig- 
 non and myself had once hunted, at different 
 periods of our lives, hares in the fields back of 
 Valmondois. It even seems we had eaten the 
 good soup of Madame Pinet at the same inn. 
 And we were reminiscing over Valmondois, its 
 small, dull village, and its surrounding pastures 
 and woodlands, when a big voice thundered over 
 my shoulder: 
 
 "I take it you're 'n American." 
 
 I looked up as the owner of the voice leaned 
 unceremoniously across our table for the matches, 
 struck one, straightened up and lighted the end 
 of a long Havana. 
 
 He was a giant in build, nearly bald, heavy, 
 and vigorous; clean-shaven, with a genial smile 
 that creased the wrinkles deep under his double 
 chin. Monsieur Pavignon looked up, too, with 
 an expression of silent amazement at the sans- 
 gene of the intruder.
 
 UNDINE 277 
 
 "My friend, Monsieur Pavignon," I said, wav- 
 ing a more formal introduction. 
 
 Monsieur Pavignon rose instantly to his feet 
 and bowed gravely. 
 
 "Jenkin's my name. Pleased to know yer." 
 
 His hand closed over Pavignon's in a hearty 
 shake. 
 
 "Yes," I replied. "I am an American." 
 
 He drew up a camp stool, planting his great 
 fists on the table, and his big feet beneath. 
 
 " What'll yer have, boys? " he inquired briskly, 
 while we politely protested. We were still lei- 
 surely sipping our vermouth. "Wa'n't that a 
 peach of a night?" he chuckled. "Goin' some, 
 eh? Well, say about one o'clock wow! 
 How'd yer stand it? My wife says to me," he 
 added, turning to Pavignon. 
 
 *I regret Monsieur Pavignon does not speak 
 English," I interposed, to relieve Pavignon's 
 embarrassment. 
 
 "Tell him if he could hear my French, he'd 
 git a club." Jenkins laughed. " Been over long? " 
 
 "I live in France," I replied. 
 
 "The hell you say!" And he whipped out a
 
 278 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 card from the waistcoat pocket opposite the 
 cigars. 
 
 JAMES E. JENKINS 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE LITTLE 
 FORKS FURNITURE CO. 
 
 "If you ever git out to Little Forks give us a 
 call," said he. " Well, sir, speaking of France, me. 
 and my partner was to Versailles a couple of days 
 ago, and I wanter tell yer" here his big fist 
 struck the table with conviction "we seen right 
 there in that there palace, chairs just as well glued 
 and pegged as we kin turn out in Little Forks to- 
 day. And them they told us was more'n two 
 hundred years old. Wa'n't that right, Sam?" 
 he shouted back of him to his partner, who was 
 finishing one of the long cigars and a friendly 
 deal in the opposite corner, and who strikingly 
 resembled Jenkins, save that he was less bald. 
 
 "Sure!" came in reply. 
 
 "Veil, vhy not?" interrupted a third voice, 
 emanating from a short, fat young man, whose 
 moonlike face was set with a pair of beadlike
 
 UNDINE 279 
 
 eyes, and whose pudgy left hand was embla- 
 zoned with three emerald rings. "For dot 
 swell, high-toned voodvork de old country is de 
 best sure dot's right." 
 
 "Shake hands with my friend, Mr. Blaumen- 
 gast," insisted Jenkins. 
 
 " Blaumen^'Z," corrected the one with the 
 emerald rings, his moonlike face, as he smiled, 
 hah* burying his eyes two black beads that 
 twinkled with prosperity. 
 
 Monsieur Pavignon again rose and bowed. 
 Mr. Blaumenheil returned it to perfection with 
 his heels together. He was used to receiving 
 customers. 
 
 "Bleased!" said Blaumenheil, in a voice as 
 soft as sealskin. 
 
 By this time, Monsieur Pavignon's embar- 
 rassment had subsided. He sat there, smiling, 
 amused as a child at these bizarre strangers. I 
 saw, too, that, despite his lack of English, he 
 was remarkably quick to catch the gist of what 
 they said a seventh sense with the Latin 
 race. Especially this was true in regard to Mr. 
 Blaumenheil, who was rich in descriptive gesture.
 
 280 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 So interested was I in the gradual change in my 
 patient, that, for the moment, I had missed 
 what Blaumenheil was saying. 
 
 "Unt vhen I come fierst to A-merica I didn't 
 haf a cent, unt now I'm vorth a million. Feel 
 dem rings. Vas you never to my blace? Here, 
 I show you. Dot is something to see." And 
 Blaumenheil produced for our inspection a pack 
 of illustrated post cards. "I got de finest blea- 
 sure park on de beach. Look here, mit real 
 trees in de promenade garten; cost me a lot of 
 money. Unt here ist de ballroom. Unt here, 
 look, ist de wine stube. Dot is also something 
 to see. Unt here ist my tee-ater, vhere I make 
 a big hit mit dot * Merry Vidow' show last sum- 
 mer; unt now next summer I gif dem opera 
 bouffes. Sure come down, unt I gif you a goot 
 time. Von't cost you a cent. Naw if you 
 hafn't seen de old beach in ten years. Veil, you 
 vouldn't know it now. Unt de goot olt days is 
 gone, too. Now I haf to pay goot big money 
 
 for dem soft-shell crabs, unt in de olt days - 
 i 
 
 vhat! Did you never know dot? Dot was a 
 olt game, sure. Vhen dem soft-shell crabs vas
 
 UNDINE 281 
 
 too high, ve used to go down to Fulton Market, 
 unt buy up de stiffs; chuck 'em in de lard, chuck 
 'em out again, unt dey ate like sugar." 
 
 Monsieur Pavignon's smile was now a delight. 
 
 "Well, say!" shrilled a large lady in a knitted 
 sweater, sweeping into the smoking room on a 
 voyage of discovery. "Here they are, Min. 
 Say, we've been looking all over for you." 
 
 Monsieur's face became suddenly grave. 
 
 "My wife," confided Jenkins. 
 
 "Bleased," said Blaumenheil, as he rose and 
 bowed dapperly. And the second bugle call 
 blew for luncheon, much to Monsieur Pavignon's 
 relief. 
 
 The days went by, and the smoking room 
 found Monsieur Pavignon and myself in our 
 favourite corner nightly, and into which now 
 came the partners from Little Forks and their 
 wives. The ever good-humoured Blaumenheil, 
 a jolly little widow from San Francisco, with 
 pretty teeth, and the trim young American girl 
 to whom the young man had brought the long- 
 stemmed roses; and she sang to us snatches from
 
 282 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 music halls to the accompaniment of a mando- 
 lin and guitar, tinkled by two rival deck suitors, 
 both fresh from college, and who had gained the 
 confidence of her "mommer" by passing the 
 olives. 
 
 The advent of these ladies in our corner pro- 
 duced, the first evening, a singular impression 
 upon my patient. Helpless as he was to get out, 
 he bravely made the best of it like the thorough- 
 bred he was, and, although more than once when 
 the strain grew intense, I saw a vestige of the old 
 look creep into his eyes, out of sheer camaraderie 
 for me, I believe, he mastered his emotion, 
 and grew genial with the rest. 
 
 Indeed, his popularity was such that they 
 heralded him now with cheers as we entered the 
 smoking room after dinner, where he was well 
 belaboured with the bad French of the trim 
 American girl, the San Francisco widow, and a 
 certain Mrs. Casey, whose husband kept a large 
 hotel. Fat, good-natured Mrs. Casey, whose 
 solitaire earrings made Mr. BlaumenheiPs em- 
 eralds look like glass. 
 
 It was Mrs. Casey who rang the first hearty
 
 UNDINE 283 
 
 laugh out of Monsieur Pavignon after my care- 
 ful translation florid Mrs. Casey, with her 
 hazel Irish eyes full of kindly devilment. 
 
 "That's right!" she repeated to me, with 
 true Irish hospitality. "If you're iver in need 
 of a good sirloin steak four inches through, with- 
 out any rheumatism in it, you come up to the 
 Princess Marie Louise. We'll take care of you." 
 
 I translated. Monsieur Pavignon seemed in 
 pain. His features contracted, he choked with 
 the stifled laughter of years set free. He apolo- 
 gized when he regained his breath, and wiped 
 his eyes. Ah ! It did me good to see him, dear 
 old Pavignon, for I knew the game was won; and 
 in my enthusiasm I whispered in Mrs. Casey's 
 small, crimson ear: 
 
 "Whin ye git to Heaven, there'll be an angel 
 waiting to presint ye with a diamond ring for 
 the good work ye've done to-night. Mind what 
 I'm tellin' ye!" 
 
 And I think she understood, bless her heart! 
 
 Little by little I had watched him shed the 
 haunted mantle of his neurasthenia. The tragic 
 mask was gone. To-night there was a new light
 
 284 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 in his eyes. He paced no longer with his hands 
 clasped behind him. He stuck them jauntily 
 in his pockets, and filled his lungs with the tang 
 of the good salt sea. 
 
 As we walked the deck together late that night, 
 long after the smoking room had closed, Pavig- 
 non grew strangely silent. We had forged ahead, 
 breasting the lee side, past the flapping wind- 
 break of canvas, when he stopped abruptly, and 
 held out his hand. 
 
 : 'You have made me very happy," he said 
 simply, and I thought I detected for the first 
 time in days the old tremor in his voice as he 
 added: "How can I ever repay you?" 
 
 "But you have," I laughed, as we swung in 
 step again past the empty chairs until we gained 
 the companionway and he bade me good-night. 
 
 I was at work on a manuscript in the smoking 
 room the next morning when he entered, called 
 to me a cheery "Bonjour!" selected a table in a 
 far corner, and, opening an old-fashioned port- 
 folio, extracted from its leather depths a mass of 
 papers, which he arranged neatly before him,
 
 UNDINE 285 
 
 and, like myself, was soon busy with his pen. 
 The wind had changed to southwest again, and 
 both decks and the smoking room were deserted. 
 Not until the second bugle call for luncheon did 
 he look up from his work. Evidently some 
 papers relative to his property in New Orleans, 
 thought I, although I was naturally not indis- 
 creet enough to inquire. 
 
 All that afternoon, as we rolled in a heavy sea, 
 his pen scratched on while I worked; and the next 
 day, and the following, found him as diligently at 
 his task. To-night even our merry corner was 
 deserted, for the sea ran high, one deck being 
 untenable, and the lee deck being little better. 
 
 We were struggling along with linked arms on 
 the spray-thrashed lee side before going to bed, 
 when he again point-blank mentioned his debt 
 to me. 
 
 "Nonsense!" I believe I exclaimed by way of 
 turning an embarrassing subject. 
 
 "You see," he continued, despite my effort 
 to change his trend of mind, "I am poor. I 
 have nothing to offer you, my friend, in return. 
 And so, knowing you write, I I have a little
 
 286 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 story for you," he continued. "I have, indeed, 
 just been able to finish it to-night. I did not 
 think I should get through before we landed, but 
 I have worked steadily, as you may have ob- 
 served. Once I wrote a little myself," he went 
 on earnestly. "Before the death of my wife. 
 Indeed, you must know that the story I have to 
 the best of my modest talent been able to com- 
 plete for you, although you will find, I fear, the 
 latter chapters somewhat condensed, I began 
 many years ago. After the death of my wife, 
 I said to myself: 'I shall continue the task. 
 It will serve to distract my mind/ But my sor- 
 row was too great. Besides, I found it utterly 
 impossible to write of a woman. Moreover, I 
 was forced to earn my bread, and in my modest 
 position in the administration of the company 
 of gas, where I worked daily in Paris, the hours 
 are long, as you know." 
 
 He drew from his overcoat pocket a tight roll 
 of manuscript, and thrust it into my hand. 
 
 "I have entitled it 'Undine,' " said he. "The 
 story," he went on rapidly to explain as we 
 turned in out of the wet, "begins, as you will see,
 
 UNDINE 287 
 
 with a shipwreck in the tropics. The only sur- 
 vivor, a young man, finds himself upon a desert 
 island, where, in his lonely wanderings, he one 
 day discovers two skeletons those of a woman 
 and a man. Presently he sees beyond, on a 
 point of sand, a charming silhouette; that of a 
 young girl bathing blonde, seventeen, ador- 
 able, lithe, with blue eyes deep as the azure sea. 
 She had grown up, survived, like some wild bird 
 on the island. Finally she makes known to him, 
 in her strange jargon, and by signs, that the skel- 
 etons are those of her parents. They, too, have 
 been shipwrecked, long ago, when she was little." 
 
 "Naturally they fall in love," I interposed. 
 
 " Naturally. Enfin! To be brief, he tells her of 
 his world beyond the great sea, of life. After 
 months, the lovers are rescued by a passing ship, 
 and he takes her, whom he calls Undine, to Paris, 
 educates her, and they are married. Eh, voilal " 
 
 "But," I protested, "you must not give me 
 this. Ah, no, my dear friend! Your narrative, 
 so ravishing of the little Undine, is yours, not 
 mine. And, besides, after all these years you 
 have been developing it."
 
 288 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 :< You will give me that pleasure," he insisted 
 quietly, and so earnestly that I dared not risk 
 again offending him. "Even should it serve to 
 no other purpose than as a little souvenir of our 
 voyage so bizarre among your people." 
 
 "Save it," I begged him, "for your old age - 
 you who are now young again." 
 
 He smiled, seemingly embarrassed, yet there 
 was no mistaking the light in his blue eyes. 
 
 "You do not know the joy of recasting, of 
 polishing, and repolishing your absorbing little 
 romance, which you began as a labour of love 
 for yourself," I ventured to explain. " You 
 who are free and are not forced to grind out ad- 
 ventures of the heart under the relentless tyr- 
 anny of cold-blooded editors, whose sole aim is 
 to increase their circulation by pampering to a 
 prudish, fickle, and hypercritical public ah, 
 I know my good Pavignon. I have tried it! 
 l Le vrai amour 9 is unknown among my people. 
 It is not understood. It is not sanctioned. It is 
 a criminal offence. Parbleu! But on marriage and 
 divorce they are experts. You would have been 
 obliged to procure for your delicious little Un-
 
 UNDINE 289 
 
 dine first a bathing suit, and then a chaperon." 
 He broke out into a hearty laugh, forcing 
 "Undine" deep into my pocket; and, before I 
 could stop him, had waved me a cheery " Bon- 
 soir! " and was halfway down the rubber steps on 
 his way to his cabin. 
 
 Two years had slipped by since we parted on 
 the dock at Hoboken. A month later I re- 
 turned to Paris, and, save for a letter upon his ar- 
 rival at New Orleans, I had heard nothing of him. 
 
 One late afternoon in June found me moving 
 with the current of humanity up the boulevard. 
 I had passed the Cafe Riche, and had halted to 
 cross the Rue Le Peletier, when a firm hand 
 gripped my shoulder. 
 
 It was Pavignon! 
 
 You can imagine my delight at meeting, with 
 what enthusiasm we turned back to the cafe for 
 our aperitif, our long talk, and how eagerly I 
 accepted his invitation to luncheon on the mor- 
 row. What a change had come over him! 
 Though he had grown grayer, he looked ten 
 years younger the last haggard lines gone
 
 290 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 from his face, and only the seams of his genial 
 smile left in their place. 
 
 "I have a surprise for you," he confessed as 
 we parted. 
 
 "Another story?" I laughed. 
 
 "A longer one," he returned mysteriously. 
 " Do not be late. We shall lunch at noon;" and 
 he rushed for his omnibus. 
 
 Had you not been familiar with the Butte de 
 Montmartre, you would, I am sure, have had 
 difficulty in finding Monsieur Pavignon's domi- 
 cile. The summit of the Butte, which is the 
 cranium of Paris, bristles with tangled old gar- 
 dens, and is scarred by a labyrinth of narrow 
 lanes sunk between ancient walls, whose wounds 
 time has healed by lichens. 
 
 Monsieur Pavignon's lane I knew by heart - 
 a short, silent, exclusive little lane, composed of 
 two zigzags and a twist. My old friend, Fre- 
 mentin, the sculptor in wood, lived at the lower 
 end of this snug byway for years. So did 
 Louise Rollet, who posed for him but that is 
 another romance. Monsieur Pavignon lived in 
 the middle, the third door to the left, an ancient
 
 UNDINE 291 
 
 door incased by a wall even older than the door, 
 and over whose rambling top ran a riot of vines. 
 
 I had arrived at his threshold punctually at 
 noon, pulled at a wire, agitating a garrulous little 
 bell within the garden, and waited. 
 
 Then the door opened, and I looked up into 
 a pair of blue eyes, and two frank, fair, white 
 hands were held forth to me in so informal a wel- 
 come that I only half caught sight of Pavignon 
 over my hostess's shoulder running to greet me. 
 
 "Married! Yes, indeed! Ah, my dear old 
 friend, and you never told me!" 
 
 We were together, all three of us now, moving 
 among the roses and the mignonette to an invit- 
 ing table sheltered by the sturdy arms of an 
 apple tree, still green in its old age, and through 
 whose cool leaves the warm sunshine touched her 
 fair, blond hair, faintly streaked with gray. 
 
 Close by, snug among the flowers, stood their 
 nest. Its ancient, gabled roof showing above 
 the tangle. 
 
 It was twilight when I descended the Butte 
 -alone. It is not gay to be alone. "At seven- 
 teen," I said to myself, "Madame Pavignon
 
 292 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 must have been adorably beautiful." And, as I 
 recalled her slight figure and her gentle voice, 
 there came to me in the dusk the memory of her 
 blue eyes, "deep as the azure sea," and her fair 
 hair, which the warm sun had turned to gold. 
 
 Had he, after all, refound the Undine of his 
 youth? I wondered. And, as I mused, there 
 came to me the vision of a calm, opal sea, and a 
 young girl bathing, frail as a flower at its mur- 
 muring edge. 
 
 And so I trod on my lonely way down to the 
 lights of Paris, lights that glittered to-night as I 
 gazed down upon them, cold as a shroud of 
 diamonds shriving a wilderness of souls. 
 
 Now and then I meet Pavignon on the Rue des Martyrs 
 and we have a vermouth together, and I am still trying to 
 translate to him the local humour of Blaumenheil. He has 
 often told me he has tried to explain it to Madame Pavignon. 
 To him we are still "bizarre," and he still laughs over our 
 good voyage together. F. B. S.
 
 CHAPTER NINE 
 THERESE
 
 CHAPTER NINE 
 
 THERESE 
 
 NO WONDER the Infant fell in love with 
 her. He was not the only one in the Latin 
 Quarter who had fallen in love with Therese. 
 
 From that first afternoon, in the stuffy little 
 Cafe du Dragon, just across the street from the 
 Atelier Julian, where they had met by chance at 
 the aperitif hour among a crowd of painters, the 
 Infant's elastic heart had changed. None of the 
 dozens of models he knew, and whose addresses 
 he kept scrawled in charcoal on the wall of his 
 studio, any longer interested him not even 
 
 295
 
 296 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 the few he had grown serious over in the last 
 two years. Therese was everything to him now. 
 He found himself in odd moments drawing from 
 memory her exquisite profile on the paint- 
 smeared wall well away from the addresses; 
 one does not install a goddess among the com- 
 mon herd. At night he lay awake thinking of 
 her. By day he dreamed of her in a brown study 
 as he walked through the Luxembourg Gardens 
 these late afternoons in September. At Julian's 
 he forgot the living model before him daily, and 
 half consciously drew Therese, until old Vacinet, 
 who corrected, was forced to remind him that 
 mademoiselle before him was not spiritual, but 
 on the contrary as sturdy and muscular as a Nor- 
 man peasant. 
 
 Therese had promised to pose for him. Ther- 
 ese had also promised to pose for me. In fact, 
 she rapped once at my door when I was out and 
 Marie invited her in and made her a cup of tea, 
 but somehow she drew the line at the Infant. He 
 had pleaded as eager as a child across the crowded 
 table in the Cafe du Dragon, but she had 
 only smiled and promised -- those vague
 
 THERESE 297 
 
 promises that women give when they are in 
 earnest. 
 
 Ah, how his heart beat as he left that noisy 
 crowd in the stuffy little Cafe du Dragon after 
 she had gone! She had pressed his hand on 
 leaving a frank pressure of camaraderie which 
 the Infant wholly misunderstood, but which 
 warmed him, elated him and sent him back to 
 his work proud and happy. 
 
 When the Infant was happy he grinned. He 
 was a stocky little chap, hard as oak and quick as 
 a cat. He had come to Paris fresh from the 
 saddle in Montana, where he slept under the 
 stars and ranged cattle for a living and nurtured 
 a longing in his chest that he wanted to paint. 
 His voice was pitched low; his jaw, when shut 
 with decision, was as hard as a bent nail; but you 
 had only to look into his clear blue eyes to see 
 that he was reeking with sentiment. I think it 
 was Marie Vinet, a little model, who used to 
 come to the Cafe du D6me, who first nicknamed 
 him the " Infant" yes, I am sure it was Marie; 
 and being only twenty-four, the Infant accepted 
 the sobriquet with a grin.
 
 298 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 Therese! The image of her tall, lithe, slim 
 figure her brilliant almond-shaped eyes, her 
 intensely black hair, which she wore in a bandeau 
 hah* hiding the tips of her small pink ears, the 
 ivory whiteness of her skin, filled him with a 
 memory as fascinating as that seductive smile of 
 hers which displayed her white teeth and accen- 
 tuated, when her features were in repose, the 
 shortness of her upper lip. Thus Therese always 
 appeared to be smiling; she had but to half close 
 her eyes to make the illusion complete. 
 
 When she walked she seemed to glide, scarcely 
 lifting her slim feet from the ground; and when 
 she sat, it was with all the subtle modelling of her 
 lithe, erect figure, her chin slightly elevated, 
 gazing at you with the gracious reserve of an 
 empress and the sauciness of a gamine. 
 
 Therese was twenty -three years old. It was 
 amazing to the Infant how much she knew, but 
 not to Davidge and myself granted she could 
 talk upon many subjects that were intellectually 
 too far advanced for either Mimi or Marie. 
 She knew a little of medicine, a little of sculpture, 
 a little of surgery, and spoke of technique of
 
 THERESE 299 
 
 impressionism and the modern school. Davidge 
 and myself were too old rats in the Quarter not 
 to be able to distinguish this clever varnish she 
 had picked up here and there from knowledge; 
 but you could not convince the Infant that it 
 was simply varnish he knew better. 
 
 It was the week after she posed for him as she 
 had promised that the Infant strolled into Dav- 
 idge's studio for a chat. Poor Infant ! He had 
 found Therese as difficult to make love to as the 
 rest of us. She was very, very serious with him, 
 and kind more like a sister than anything 
 else; and that was all. He had told her he loved 
 her, like many another, and she only smiled and 
 patted his cheek with the same camaraderie with 
 which she had pressed his hand. It was that 
 friendly pat which kept the Infant from despair. 
 And so in this state of hopeful misery the Infant 
 had come over for a chat with Davidge. He was 
 lonely and wanted some one to talk to. 
 
 "And you say you consider Therese wise? 
 You baby!" chuckled Davidge. He gripped 
 his red-pointed beard and peered down between 
 his long dangling legs from his painter's scaf-
 
 300 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 folding at the Infant squatting on his studio 
 floor, gingerly knocking the ashes from his pipe 
 against the sole of his shoe. 
 
 "She knows a lot," he returned slowly with 
 conviction, "about well, take for instance 
 what she knows alone about medicine and 
 and operations and " 
 
 "Of course she does; a superficial varnish. 
 Infant, nothing else," interrupted Davidge, "not 
 real knowledge." There was old Poubonet - 
 one of the most skillful surgeons in Paris; he 
 adored Therese. Mademoiselle could not help 
 gleaning from his companionship a few house- 
 hold hints and remedies. 
 
 "Tell me she is beautiful," continued Dav- 
 idge, "and I'll agree with you. She is very 
 beautiful. You're a lucky dog to have got her 
 to pose for you, but the profound knowledge you 
 imagine Therese possesses is pure unadulterated 
 vernis Parisian varnish of the best quality, 
 and as deceiving as the enamel on a false pearl. 
 Scratch through it some day and see for yourself. 
 The oracle you rave about will prove to be a 
 myth, and you will find beneath that enamel the
 
 THERESE 301 
 
 brain of a coquette and the simple heart of a 
 blanchisseuse. That is really what Therese once 
 was, my boy, like a thousand other models in 
 the Quarter. The Bois de Boulogne is full of 
 them any afternoon; you can distinguish them 
 by the crests on their victorias." 
 
 The Infant jumped to his feet. 
 
 "That's it; go on!" he cried. "Davidge, 
 you're too blase; you're an ascetic old cynic. I 
 tell you, there is not a human being in the world 
 who has not his or her interesting side, and I'm 
 glad I can see some good in every one. You're 
 wrong about Therese," he insisted. 
 
 "Therese and Courtois and myself dined to- 
 gether at the Chat Rouge last night," continued 
 the Infant. "Most of the old crowd were there 
 - Rene Cassin, Anette, Forbes, Billy Anderson, 
 the Empress, Dutoit and the rest. Therese kept 
 them listening for hours. She has her theories, 
 you know, about the psychology of love, and 
 talked a lot about jade cutting among the 
 ancients and the technique of the Dutch 
 school." 
 
 "Gave you a little of each, eh?" queried
 
 302 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 Davidge, "while she helped you to the hors- 
 d'ceuvres?" 
 
 "And her memory was something surprising," 
 continued the Infant, undeterred in his enthu- 
 siasm. "There is hardly a verse of Paul Ver- 
 laine's, Therese does not know by heart." 
 
 "There you go again," interrupted the painter, 
 squeezing a fresh pat of Chinese vermilion on to 
 his pallette; and turning to the big canvas 
 squared up in front of the scaffold, he proceeded 
 to lay in the flesh tones of a flying cherub among 
 a bevy of nymphs still in a stage of charcoal and 
 smudge. 
 
 "How's that? Too strong?" he called down 
 to the Infant, referring to the pink smear on the 
 fugitive God of Love. 
 
 "It's all right," replied the Infant, eying the 
 canvas. "Wait until that ceiling decoration of 
 yours gets in place; you will need all the forced 
 colour you're slapping into it now to carry it." 
 
 "Therese displayed the keenest insight into 
 characters," the Infant went on. " Why, she de- 
 scribed Courtois and myself to a T!" 
 
 "Ho, ho!" roared Davidge, wheeling arou
 
 THERESE 303 
 
 from his work. "That was the easiest problem 
 you put to your adorable sphinx? It was like 
 taking a watch to a watchmaker." 
 
 The Infant reddened. 
 
 "No offence, old boy," added Davidge by way 
 of apology, as he climbed down from the scaffold 
 for a rest and a cigarette; but you can see exactly 
 what I mean. When you touched on the ques- 
 tion of men you were in the presence of an ex- 
 pert." 
 
 "She did not roast either of us hah 5 as much as 
 we expected," confessed the Infant, gouging the 
 bowl of his pipe into the remnants of a sack of 
 Virginia. 
 
 "And you and mademoiselle will of course 
 dine again at the Chat Rouge? " laughed Davidge. 
 
 "Thursday night," confessed the Infant, 
 brightening. " Will you come ? " 
 
 "Delicious!" exclaimed the painter, bending 
 over in his voluminous corduroy trousers, as he 
 scooped a scuttleful of coal from the bottom of 
 his coalbox and sent the contents clattering into 
 the small stove. 
 
 "Yes, I'll come," he said after a moment's
 
 304 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 hesitation; "but you'll have to stake me through, 
 if I do. I'm not eating this week that is, not 
 in public; I won't have a sou until the twenty- 
 third. Bartet and I have been dining here in 
 the studio. We've got trust at the grocery in 
 the Rue de Rennes; the fellow who keeps it is a 
 pal of Bartet's they were in the same regiment 
 together." 
 
 "You can have anything I've got," said the 
 Infant. He meant it, although he was then 
 carrying the remnant of his monthly stipend in 
 the corner of his vest pocket. 
 
 "Good, I'll be there," promised Davidge as 
 the Infant took his leave. 
 
 A narrow flight of stairs wound in a spiral 
 about an iron column and served as the sole 
 means of access to a smoky, genial little room 
 above the cafe of the Chat Rouge, where many 
 of those who entered nightly were greeted with a 
 welcoming cheer and often with a kiss from some 
 Berthe or Mimi or Celestine. They were like 
 one big family, those good boys and girls, and 
 their hearts were of gold.
 
 THERESE 805 
 
 Such hours as these often came at the end of a 
 hard day's work or worry. It is never all play 
 in Bohemia; it is the most serious land I know. 
 
 These stairs were a spiral flight that led to 
 Paradise. How many brutal hobnailed shoes 
 of idle painters had polished those steps! How 
 many froufrous and trim ankles had flashed up 
 them! The high heels of Celeste and the tiny 
 boots of Marie, all up those stairs, all joyously 
 tripping up to a bouillabaisse fit not only for a 
 king but for a latter day grisette and her sweet- 
 heart, both of whom are as good judges of a 
 bouillabaisse as any of the crowned heads, and 
 quite as exacting. Madame Jolivet, who cooked 
 the famous dish, knew this. That is why this 
 famous potpourri of lobster and little fishes, of 
 spices and herbs and things tart and sour and 
 sweet and peppery, was often delayed in the 
 smoky little kitchen below stairs for a final touch 
 of this and a pinch of that before the beaming 
 Adolphe, his white apron reaching to the toes of 
 his cracked but carefully polished boots, came 
 stamping up the spiral flight with the noble dish 
 at last ready to serve, steaming, savoury and fit
 
 306 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 for the gods, and was greeted as soon as he thrust 
 his head in the door with cries of: "Oh! Que 
 c'est beau!" and a clattering, banging, yelling 
 bedlam of like badinage, all of which the smiling 
 Adolphe, his broad, honest face red from the 
 glare of the kitchen fire, enjoyed hugely and re- 
 turned this good-natured chaff with timely 
 repartee all out of his bald head. 
 
 For Adolphe was a Marseillais, and a Marseil- 
 lais, they say, is never at a loss for a word. What 
 he said was merry, good-natured and respectful, 
 and guarded with as much fact as if he were ad- 
 dressing his own children, if he had any and 
 they say he had five. 
 
 Verily it was a dinner enfamille. 
 
 How many such families grow up in Bohemia 
 until one by one this one and that one drifts 
 away, and one wonders whether if ever again life 
 will seem as dear and as sweet. 
 
 The cafe shutters of the Chat Rouge were bat- 
 tened in place and the chairs stacked on the tables 
 for the night, when the party of four, consisting 
 of Therese, Courtois, Davidge and the Infant, 
 opened the door at the head of the spiral flight.
 
 THERESE 307 
 
 Down the quartette came, Therese singing one 
 of Delmet's ballads, Courtois lending a noble 
 bass, Davidge a wavering tenor, and the Infant 
 filling in the gaps mostly off the key. 
 
 It had been a beautiful dinner, and they had 
 remained long after the rest of the old crowd who 
 shared the dingy little dining room had gone. 
 
 It was after two in the morning when the 
 quartette closed the door of the Chat Rouge be- 
 hind them. A winter fog hung cold and damp in 
 the chill air, a fog that had a chill in it like the ah* 
 from a refrigerator. For some minutes the four 
 stood chatting on the pavement. An open fiacre, 
 prowling for a late trip, came clattering up 
 to the group, the small rawboned horse sliding 
 most of the way to the gutter on the fog-slimed 
 cobbles. 
 
 Courtois wrapped his coat about him, and say- 
 ing good-night, swung off in the direction of his 
 studio, Davidge accompanying him as far as the 
 Impasse du Maine. Thus Therese and the In- 
 fant were left alone. 
 
 Now that they were alone for a cocker does 
 not count any more than his horse the Infant
 
 308 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 had grown strangely silent. He would have said 
 much, but he dared not. The truth was, he did 
 not like the idea of Therese going home alone at 
 that hour, and she had stayed with them late 
 under the distinct understanding that none 
 should be bothered with escorting her. Even 
 the Infant's insistence had been in vain. 
 
 "Please," pleaded the Infant in a final appeal 
 as they stood beside the nighthawk; but Therese 
 shook her head. 
 
 :< You are not going to take me home," she 
 added with final decision. "I live, as you know, 
 in Montmartre; it is nearly three miles from 
 here." 
 
 "Nonsense," replied the Infant; "I shall get 
 back to my studio before daylight. I am not 
 going to let you go home alone. Please be rea- 
 sonable. It is too far; it is too late; besides, the 
 horse cannot go to the top of your street. I 
 know the Rue Lepic; when you leave your fiacre 
 you will have to walk alone hurriedly, and keep 
 in the shadow out of the way of any nocturnal 
 vagabond who comes along at this hour." 
 
 "But I am not afraid," insisted Therese; "the
 
 THERESE 309 
 
 police walk up my street in pairs. Besides, there 
 is a good lamp at my corner, which makes it 
 bright to the door." 
 
 "And correspondingly deepens the shadows," 
 replied the Infant. "No, Therese, you are not 
 going alone." 
 
 Therese closed her eyes smilingly and laid her 
 finger on the Infant's lips. 
 
 "There is no use arguing the matter with me; 
 I insist. You are tired, my dear friend," she 
 said. : 'You have a slight fever; and you will 
 leave me and go immediately to that box of 
 yours with a skylight and go to bed. You will 
 then get up in the morning and write me a little 
 word, saying you are much better, and will I 
 come and dine with you to-morrow night; and I 
 will send you a little word saying I will. We 
 shall dine alone, you and I, at Pere Moret's. We 
 shall get a good dinner and cheap. You will 
 see." 
 
 Her foot touched the step of the waiting fiacre 
 with its coachman swathed in his blanket. 
 
 "A bientot" she said, and suddenly she bent 
 and kissed the Infant on both cheeks.
 
 310 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "A bientot" replied the Infant, elated and 
 dazed. 
 
 "To the Rue Lepic, Number 19," she said to 
 the coachman. 
 
 "Bien, Madame." 
 
 And they were gone in the raw mist. 
 
 For some moments the Infant stood gazing 
 down the deserted street; then he turned back in 
 the direction of his studio. He felt a certain con- 
 solation in doing as she had wished. 
 
 The route from the Chat Rouge in the Quar- 
 tier Latin to the steep hill across the Seine lead- 
 ing to Montmartre is complicated and long, 
 until it reaches the steep Rue Lepic. At night 
 along this tortuous course is disclosed the gamut 
 of human comedy. Here a senator is hurrying 
 home from a late dinner; there a vagabond 
 slouches along seeking a night's lodging; at 
 another corner a lady in an opera cloak steps into 
 her waiting coupe; at the next a girl shrugs her 
 shoulders at poverty and waits. In the early 
 morning it is like a weird and ghostly voyage 
 in the chill mist. The crooked streets, the lights, 
 the mushroom growth of chimney pipes and
 
 THERESE 311 
 
 uneven gables appear as if suspended in a mir- 
 age. 
 
 The horse that Therese had drawn in a lottery 
 for a fiacre at so late an hour click-clocked on 
 with a swinging gait. He was a willing little 
 beast, and the fat coachman swathed in his horse 
 blanket chirruped to him an encouraging "Hue, 
 Cocotte" at the beginning of every street they 
 turned into. Right and left they swung through 
 deserted byways of the Quarter. Now they zig- 
 zagged, first left, then right, all in a twinkling 
 through a crooked ravine of a street flanked by 
 the sombre walls of the Institute de France; it 
 is called the Rue Mazarine, and it brought them 
 out to the river. 
 
 Therese was thinking of the Infant. She be- 
 gan to compare him rapidly with other men. He 
 had been considerate; she felt a certain con- 
 fidence, a certain respect, for this young Ameri- 
 can. That is why she had posed for him she 
 felt safe with him. "Yes," she said to herself 
 as the fiacre swayed on, "he is a child a big 
 child fine and simple. One does not meet one 
 like him every day.*'
 
 312 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 She recalled his honest eyes, his earnest 
 naturalness, his enthusiasm. "I have been 
 cruel to him," she thought; then she checked her- 
 self. "Non, non; I must not be a fool," she said 
 to herself; "he is too serious for that." 
 
 Therese shrank back in the moist dust-smeared 
 cushions of the fiacre and dozed. 
 
 When they crossed the Pont du Carrousel she 
 opened her eyes; the black river swung beneath 
 the bridge; coloured ribbons of light from the 
 lantern of the sister bridge above wriggled deep 
 down in the inky water. In a few moments they 
 had rattled over the vast cobbled court of the 
 Louvre and had turned into the Rue de Rivoli. 
 
 " Hurry, my old one! " cried Therese, starting 
 again out of a nap. 
 
 "It is understood, Madame," replied the 
 coachman. 
 
 Therese fell asleep. When she awoke again 
 the fiacre was rattling along past the markets, 
 down into that damp valley occupied by the 
 great market east of the Boulevard Sebastopol, 
 one of the roughest quarters at night in Paris. 
 The long line of vegetable carts that had crawled
 
 THERESE 313 
 
 half the night from outlying farms into the city 
 with their swinging lanterns and their drivers 
 asleep now stood with the horses out of the 
 shafts. Tons of cabbages, carrots and potatoes 
 were heaped in square piles even with the curb- 
 stones, and groups of men in blue blouses were 
 talking in low tones about them in the dim light 
 of the cart lanterns. The air hung heavy with 
 the reek of vegetables. 
 
 "Where are you going, cocker?" cried Therese, 
 now thoroughly awake. 
 
 Either the man was asleep himself, drunk or 
 misleading her. 
 
 "Madame said she wished to go to- the Rue 
 Delique; this is the shortest way." 
 
 "Rue Lepic, I said, stupid Number 19." 
 
 "It is understood, Madame," answered the 
 man muffled in the horse blanket; "then we shall 
 turn back." 
 
 He rattled into a side street, one of a dozen 
 lying between the market and the Boulevard 
 Sebastopol, swung through a black slit of a street, 
 turned into an alley, rumbled through a passage 
 and emerged into a straight thoroughfare
 
 314 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 lined with business houses, and taking another 
 turn to the left, roused his horse into a smart trot. 
 
 It seemed impossible for Therese to keep 
 awake. The very effort of lifting her eyelids 
 pained her. When she awoke again she was 
 beyond the limit of the Rue Vaugirard and 
 among the ruins of deserted factories. The 
 horse was running and the man was lashing him. 
 Therese was awake now very much awake, 
 with every nerve in her lithe body quivering. 
 It would have been useless to have jumped out. 
 Out! Where? In that road where every shadow 
 might hold a footpad only too glad to have 
 encountered a pretty woman away from the 
 assistance of the police? She recalled the 
 Infant's words. The police seldom ventured out 
 there, and when they did they walked by fours. 
 
 Suddenly the steaming horse stopped. Therese 
 instinctively sprang to her feet, but the ruffian 
 on the box was too quick for her. 
 
 'Not so fast, my little lady," he leered, thrust- 
 ing his face close to hers. 
 
 " I understand," she said coolly. " Well, what 
 do you want?"
 
 THERESE 315 
 
 The eyes of the man glinted for an instant at 
 the heavy silver and jewelled necklace about her 
 throat the one the sculptor Targelle had once 
 fashioned for her, and which Therese wore in his 
 memory. 
 
 "That's good merchandise you've got there, 
 my chicken," he leered. "I don't want that; 
 I've got plenty of my own. I'm good to my 
 woman, I am." 
 
 Therese grew cold all over; for a moment she 
 laboured for her breath. 
 
 "Ah, zut!" snarled the man, leaning back over 
 his box. " Who are you, little blanchisseuse, that 
 you should give yourself the airs of a grande 
 dame? So you think I have run my good horse 
 over here for nothing? You might play that on 
 your prince, but not on me, gamine." 
 
 A something akin to the accumulating strength 
 a leopard feels before springing rose within her. 
 She was no longer cold; she became hot with 
 sudden frenzy. The sinews in her lithe body 
 under this sudden tension of desperation became 
 like steel. She slipped her hand into her pocket 
 and wound her slender fingers with a tightening
 
 316 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 grip about the handle of her night key, its old- 
 fashioned steel shank protruding from her 
 clenched fist. Simultaneously the horse gave a 
 sudden start and the ruffian hah 3 lost his balance; 
 the next instant he regained his equilibrium and 
 his coarse red hand fell like the paw of a bear on 
 her throat. Then it was that all the pent-up 
 desperation broke within her. In a frenzy she 
 struck her assailant a swinging blow that sent 
 the steel key ripping in a jagged gash from the 
 eye to the jaw. The horse bolted, and the man, 
 losing his balance, tumbled from his box. As 
 he did so his right leg slipped between the spokes 
 of the wheel. 
 
 Therese jumped and was thrown into the ditch 
 by the roadside from the momentum of the lurch- 
 ing fiacre. She crawled to her knees. The 
 fiacre was fast disappearing, swaying away in 
 zigzags in the gloom of the road, while the ruffian 
 screamed in agony at every revolution of the 
 wheel of torture that mercilessly wrenched and 
 snapped his bones as the frightened horse bolted 
 on. Presently the man's cries grew fainter and 
 a bend in the road hid the runaway from view.
 
 THERESE 317 
 
 Therese staggered painfully to her feet. She 
 dared not cry out for help in that deserted dis- 
 trict, where every second shadow might screen 
 some cut-throat. Keener than the physical 
 pain and the fever her experience had caused, 
 was the agony of fear. She trudged on in the 
 direction of the city limits, the screams of the 
 man linked to the wheel ringing in her ears. 
 The man was evidently dead or nearly so. 
 Should the police chance to discover him mangled 
 by the roadside they would scour the district for 
 his assailant. These things terrified her as she 
 stumbled on. The rough stones in the road cut 
 through her light slippers into the flesh. There 
 had been no witness. Would the authorities take 
 her word for what had happened? Suddenly she 
 became conscious that she was still gripping the 
 night key. She looked at it; there was blood upon 
 it. She dared not throw it away : she felt it better 
 to explain frankly when the time came. Perhaps 
 the commissaire de police would believe her. 
 
 Just beyond her now, close to the road, lay a 
 squatter's settlement. From a ramshackle 
 window a light shone out. Therese slunk by
 
 318 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 this hovel in the shadow of a factory wall. As 
 she did so for some moments her heart again 
 seemed to stop beating. There were men inside 
 the cabin; she could hear their oaths and laughter. 
 The remaining hovels in the group lay tucked 
 away in small truck gardens. These low shanties, 
 patched with stray boards and roofed with odds 
 and ends of the scrap heap, were notorious shel- 
 ter for a colony of Apaches, part of a vicious 
 band smoked out of their stronghold on the 
 outskirts of Menilmontant, where they had lived 
 the year before in a deserted quarry. The girl 
 moved on as in a nightmare. 
 
 Therese's high-heeled slippers were now in 
 ribbons; a little farther on she discarded them, 
 then turned back, picked them up and put them 
 in her pocket. It was easier than stumbling in 
 them, and she dared not leave them as a clue. 
 
 With the fast approaching daylight a new 
 terror seized her. To be found by the police in 
 the pitiful plight she was in meant arrest. Hei 
 thoughts came incoherently now. Her head 
 seemed on fire; yet there was one dominating 
 longing above all others, and that was to reach
 
 THERESE 319 
 
 the Infant's studio. She had regained the Rue 
 Vaugirard now, clenching her teeth to stifle the 
 pain; vaguely she followed it block after block 
 until she reached the side street in which the 
 Infant lived. Twice she hid in an alleyway to 
 avoid the passing police. 
 
 Half an hour later Therese found herself at 
 the doorway leading to the Infant's studio. 
 
 Madame Martin, his sleepy concierge, having 
 opened the front door by pulling a cord sus- 
 pended above her bed, had not even questioned 
 the tired, broken voice of the intruder. Therese 
 crawled slowly up the narrow stairs leading to 
 the Infant's door and grasped the bell cord, then 
 fell unconscious beside the door. 
 
 And there he found her her whom he really 
 loved. She dimly realized the warmth of his 
 strong arms as he carried her and placed her up- 
 on his bed and Madame Martin weeping - 
 and the quiet doctor giving that good soul orders ; 
 and for weeks she lay in the Infant's bed and the 
 Infant bunked on the divan in Davidge's studio 
 during the odd hours when she fell asleep and 
 released his hand.
 
 320 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 Almost any sunny afternoon if you chance to 
 cross the Luxembourg Gardens you will see in 
 the shadow of a statue, close to the fountain, a 
 laughing little girl playing hoople with an Eng- 
 lish nurse; and not very far away sits a slender 
 mother with her hair in a bandeau, reading. 
 Sometimes the Infant joins his wife after work 
 and they remain until the drum taps to close the 
 gates. The Infant has been very successful. 
 He has a new studio now in the Rue des Dames 
 - a big studio with a sunny apartment above 
 and plenty of room for Therese and the baby. 
 Davidge painted the frieze in madame's boudoir 
 as a wedding present. Davidge is a good fellow 
 at heart, and since he received the decoration of 
 the Legion d'Honneur he is getting quite dig- 
 nified and his cynicism is a thing of the past. 
 
 In a corner over the divan, in the shadow of 
 the big skylight downstairs, hangs a framed clip- 
 ping from Le Matin, dated five years ago : 
 
 The agents of police, Grenard and Ravonneaux, dis- 
 covered at daylight yesterday morning in a ditch in a 
 deserted quarter on the outskirts of the Rue Vaugirard 
 one named Jean Martin, cocker de fiacre, face gashed,
 
 THERESE 321 
 
 internal injuries and leg broken. Crime? Or accident? 
 At the Hospital Cochin; condition desperate. Monsieur 
 Bouvais, the sympathetic commissaire de police, has opened 
 an inquiry. 
 
 The Baby is now engaged. They are to be married in 
 June. It seems incredible Sapristi! how the years 
 glide by. Davidge and I are invited to the wedding. The 
 first thing he did when he heard the news was to go over to the 
 cracked mirror over his easel and gaze at himself for some 
 moments, while the Infant, her father and myself, watched 
 him. He was wondering why he looked so old. F. B. S.
 
 CHAPTER TEN 
 STRAIGHT-RYE JONES
 
 From my kitchen vrindow in the Rue des Deux Amis in 
 Montmartre I can see up the street as far as the passage Henri 
 Vittiers. I can also see the Cafe Jean Baptist, where I some- 
 times dine. It was there I first met the hero of this story. 
 
 F. B. S.
 
 CHAPTER TEN 
 
 STRAIGHT-RYE JONES 
 
 IN MONTMARTRE a man does not become 
 notorious at a single bound; a familiar char- 
 acter, a "type," whom every one knows and 
 hails in passing, takes years to produce. 
 
 Straight-rye Jones was one of these. 
 
 None of us knew exactly where he came from 
 in America. "Out West from God's own coun- 
 try," he used to say, and swear with enthusiasm 
 over the memory. He possessed a strength and 
 a constitution that were amazing. There was 
 in his back, his arms, his deep chest, his broad 
 
 325
 
 326 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 shoulders, and his legs, the strength of a young 
 bull, and in his heart lay his ever-ready good 
 nature. His eyes were blue and generally blood- 
 shot; his hair was a tawny, dull blond, and so 
 seldom cut that it fell below the collar of his coat. 
 Hatless, it blew wild as hemp in the wind. In 
 the cafe, he brushed it back with his hand. His 
 shapeless features, clean-shaven at intervals, the 
 broad forehead, the flat nose, and the bulldog 
 jaw were freckled like his big, coarse hands. His 
 voice had a certain huskiness about it, and was 
 pitched low and easy, like his laugh. He wore 
 the wide corduroy trousers of the Parisian work- 
 man, and in winter wooden sabots and a cowboy 
 hat. 
 
 When he lapsed from the language of Western 
 America into the argot of Montmartre, he still 
 retained his favourite exclamations from Mon- 
 tana. These gave a certain ginger to his raw 
 French. 
 
 His days he spent in a small cafe tucked under 
 the "Hotel of the Abyssinians and Madame de 
 Pompadour Reunited," a stale cafe, always smell- 
 ing of yesterday, and in which the most conspic-
 
 STRAIGHT-RYE JONES 327 
 
 uous touch of cleanliness was the neatly raked 
 strip of sand next to the worn billiard table. 
 
 His nights he passed in bars about the markets 
 where any one but Straight-rye Jones would 
 have had a knife driven into his back in less than 
 a week. It was his good-natured grin, his reck- 
 lessness, and his colossal strength that saved 
 him, and gave him a safe passport in and out of 
 these dives about the "Halles" frequented by 
 Apaches, by criminals, and their still more dan- 
 gerous sweethearts. 
 
 They welcomed Straight-rye Jones among 
 them as they would have welcomed one of their 
 own. Often when a quick fight occurred they 
 were glad he was there. He was a whirlwind in 
 a fight, drunk or sober, and he was never cold 
 sober, save at short intervals during the day. 
 He used to come back to the cafe under the 
 "Abyssinians and Madame de Pompadour 
 Reunited," and tell us about the last "scrap." 
 
 "I was settin' talkin* to a girl," he would 
 drawl, with a grin, "and in come a couple of 
 them butchers from La Villette." 
 
 And then would follow the exclamations from
 
 328 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 Montana, whose elimination is one of the diffi- 
 culties in writing this story, as Straight-rye 
 Jones's vocabulary without them is limited, 
 though I never heard him swear before a lady or 
 a child. And once, when he was blind drunk, 
 he had sense enough to hide behind a tree when 
 the two children of Delacour passed. 
 
 No one ever spoke ill of Straight-rye Jones. 
 
 I have known him to sober up for three days 
 in order to take these two small children of 
 Delacour's to the shady square which lies be- 
 tween the Rue Turgot and the Boulevard Clichy. 
 He had a great fondness for children, and they 
 were safe with him. 
 
 Had you chanced to pass now and then on 
 some sunny spring afternoon, you might have 
 seen him sitting on one of the public benches - 
 his sombrero pushed back on his head a child 
 on each faded corduroy knee, telling them stories. 
 The story about the phantom wolf the "Injuns" 
 trapped, for the little boy; and for the little girl, 
 the story of the fairy who lived in the trunk of 
 the tree, and gave every little girl everything 
 she asked for.
 
 STRAIGHT-RYE JONES 329 
 
 "She was a good un," he'd laugh low and ex- 
 plain. "She wa'n't never known to refuse 
 candies an' them little rockin'-hosses an' 
 an' them stare-eyed dolls what kin say * popper' 
 and 'mommer' -maybe if youse was to hev 
 asked her fer less see one er them little 
 them little kitchuns. Pshaw ! I'd er oughter 
 thought er that, hedn't I? One er them little 
 kitchuns, whar yer kin cook and weigh and shut 
 the door of the stove tight. Waal, she wa'n't 
 never known to refuse." 
 
 And he'd laugh that low, easy laugh of Mon- 
 tana that reminds you of the cool twilight, free- 
 dom, and a fresh horse. Yes, Straight-rye Jones 
 was fond of children. 
 
 And after such an afternoon with Delacour's, 
 which happened only once in a while, for he had 
 to prepare for it and tell Delacour in advance, 
 he'd take the little boy and the little girl back to 
 Delacour's studio, from which their mamma had 
 "gone." 
 
 Then Straight-rye Jones would shamble slowly 
 back to the stale cafe beneath Madame de Pom- 
 padour and the ancient tribes reunited, where
 
 330 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 we painters met before dinner for our aperitif - 
 his eyes scanning in a dream the edge of the 
 gutter, until it led him half consciously to the 
 door, and he turned in to drink. 
 
 He preferred the corner table in the alcove, 
 although he sometimes sat at a smaller one 
 provided with a single chair next to the billiard 
 table when he was broke. 
 
 ; 'You ain't never knowed what it is to love," 
 he once said to me. : 'You ain't never had no 
 sweetheart what you really loved, and if you 
 had er had why, we was goin' to be married - 
 and she throwed you down? Well! You ain't 
 never loved; and if you had er loved you'd er 
 been down and out like me. Look at me! " 
 
 His voice grew thick, and he stared at his 
 half-empty glass of sour straight rye, and ran 
 his freckled hand through his long, dull hair 
 wearily, pushing it back from his eyes. 
 
 " I ain't worth nothin' nothin'l " He began 
 to cry through nervous depression, his big hands 
 in a tremble. "No," he added slowly, "you 
 ain't never truly loved." 
 
 And he drained his glass with a gulp, shivered,
 
 STRAIGHT-RYE JONES 331 
 
 shoved the empty glass from him, and felt in his 
 trousers pocket to see if he still had enough to 
 pay for his next and mine, which he insisted on, 
 backed up by the persuasion of Montana. 
 
 No one inquired where he lived, and, since he 
 never mentioned his domicile, we were too dis- 
 creet to ask, for he disappeared often for days 
 and weeks, although it was certain that at one 
 time he lived at the butt end of an alley off the 
 Boulevard Clichy, in a two-story box provided 
 with a pair of stairs, and whose beckoning light 
 over the entrance at night spelled "Hotel." It 
 was quite a lively alley, and as sad as a sewer; a 
 sort of sinister ravine off the gay highway for 
 lost souls to wait in. There are such glimpses of 
 purgatory on earth. 
 
 It was safer to keep to the middle of this alley, 
 although sometimes Straight-rye Jones stumbled 
 and lurched along its narrow sidewalk in the 
 dark, and reached his domicile alive. It must, 
 however, be said that it had its note of respect- 
 ability a stable for honest fiacre horses nearly 
 opposite the "Hotel." 
 
 He came to the cafe steadily after these sudden
 
 332 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 disappearances, wedged in the corner alcove next 
 to the worn billiard table; and to-day he sat talk- 
 ing to a stranger a tall, slim girl, with the skin 
 of a Creole, though there was not a drop of 
 French blood in her veins, and whose whole life 
 was as false as the pendant pearls in her ears. 
 Her fingers were tapering and long a fact 
 which Besagon, the painter, whose satire is 
 caustic, explained were given her for a purpose, 
 since she was a born thief. 
 
 "Just as nature provides the ape," continued 
 Besagon, "with the ability to grasp with the 
 thumb and forefinger." 
 
 Besagon is quite a zoologist. 
 
 She inveigled herself into our midst with cat- 
 like ingenuity, and with the same feline intel- 
 ligence she chose the corner in the alcove as her 
 own, and refused to budge; and for two days be- 
 came a sensation with the story of her life a 
 spy in the Japanese war, special correspondent 
 to a New York daily, and now broke, with Mont- 
 martre as her home and her jewels in the Mont 
 De Piete. 
 
 At the end of a week only Straight-rye Jones
 
 STRAIGHT-RYE JONES 333 
 
 listened to her, and they drank hard together, 
 for she was too timid to become a model, owing 
 to her father being a judge of the supreme court 
 and her sister-in-law an English duchess. But 
 she could "write," she said, "poetry," and "if 
 she could only write her life no, honest 
 listen, dearie." 
 
 And here she touched me for a bond of sym- 
 pathy, but I bit not, for she was more dangerous 
 than a bottle of strychnine. 
 
 "I'm a gypsy," she confessed at last, with a 
 sob, "and I'm sorry I've lied to you boys." 
 
 Whereat Straight-rye Jones laid a heavy paw 
 gently on her cold-creamed neck. 
 
 "You're a slick kid," said he, "and too tall 
 for your age." 
 
 He rolled her a fresh cigarette, for she smoked 
 furiously whenever it was possible, and borrowed 
 tobacco right and left this girl whom we called 
 "La Tzigane," on account of her "gypsy" blood. 
 
 The cafe beneath the hotel of the savage tribes 
 and the grande dame reunited prospered in its 
 own stale way on bad liquor and popularity; but 
 Straight-rye Jones under La Tzigane's evil eye
 
 334 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 became hopeless. There were days when he 
 begged for poison. There were days and nights 
 when he lay in the Hospital Bichat on the verge 
 of delirium tremens. There were days when he 
 had them, and lay strapped to a cot; yet none of 
 these crises seemed to hurt him to an apparent 
 extent. 
 
 During these forced absences La Tzigane sat 
 alone. Now and then she went out to the hos- 
 pital to see him, and to borrow. 
 
 It was the fourth day after he returned to the 
 cafe sober, with a clear eye and a sane brain, 
 and a firm decision to leave drink alone that 
 she insisted on his drinking her health. 
 
 In a week he was back again at Bichat; and 
 when again he returned, he forgave La Tzigane, 
 as he forgave everybody. He, like the good fairy 
 in the tree, "wa'n't never known to refuse." 
 
 It was May. The air was soft with a kindly 
 warmth. Straight-rye Jones sat on a bench 
 along the Boulevard Clichy, basking in the good 
 sunshine. It was nearly noon, and the sordid 
 boulevard was alive with its morning marketing
 
 STRAIGHT-RYE JONES 335 
 
 from the pushcarts, and noisy with their owners 
 crying their wares. From where he sat he could 
 glance up the steep Rue Lepic, alive with market 
 carts and choked with a slowly moving human 
 stream of women in wrappers their dyed hair 
 in pigtails or curl papers women who had 
 gone to bed with the dawn, and were up to bar- 
 gain for a cabbage or half a rabbit. 
 
 Along the Boulevard Clichy the debris and 
 filth of the night were being swept out of the all- 
 night supper places and the cabarets stale, 
 black holes, that only a few hours before had been 
 glittering in electricity and alive with the senti- 
 mental waltz and the popping cork. 
 
 In broad daylight, after its feverish, wide-open 
 nights, during which its worn paint and tinsel 
 are disguised by light and life, Montmartre 
 shows its cheap carcass; its illusion is laid bare. 
 It is as if the lid of a dance hall was lifted, the sun- 
 light let in; and one looked down upon the flimsy 
 scenery and the rubbish and dust beneath. 
 
 He could see, too, from where he sat, the red 
 windmill of the Moulin Rouge still in day- 
 light, for it only grinds at night. It, too, was
 
 336 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 being swept out; and an electrician in a pair of 
 blue overalls was up on a ladder mending its 
 coloured lights. 
 
 On the terrace of the cafes lounged pale, collar- 
 less gentlemen, also forced temporarily out of bed 
 for an early absinthe. They were, for the most 
 part, idle criminals whom one does not awk- 
 wardly jostle in a crowd without politely begging 
 their pardon. They are unusually polite under 
 these circumstances. There is nothing that 
 touches the pride of a thief more than to be 
 treated like a gentleman. 
 
 Straight-rye Jones saw nothing of these things 
 - they were too familiar to him. He sat hat- 
 less, his chjn in his hands, absorbed in thought, 
 gazing absently at a sparrow bolder than its 
 mates who had hopped near him. 
 
 " Come here, you durned, cunnin' little cuss," 
 he drawled softly; and he felt in his pockets for 
 the remnant of his breakfast, a stale roll. " Thar ! 
 I ain't er goin' to hurt ye." 
 
 He crushed the roll against the bench with his 
 hand. The bird fluttered away in fright that 
 panic which is the forerunner of confidence -
 
 STRAIGHT-RYE JONES 387 
 
 wheeled in the air, and fluttered down to his feet, 
 to fill himself well with the crumbs. 
 
 For a long while Straight-rye Jones sat im- 
 movable, thinking. A temperament such as his 
 is capable of extremes. Often the greatest 
 strength is born of the greatest weakness. It is 
 the even temperament which is so often capable 
 of nothing. 
 
 Slowly an idea developed in his brain an 
 idea that had occurred to him before, but which 
 to him appeared so vast and difficult that its 
 development seemed hopeless. The warm sun- 
 shine stimulated him. It possessed, this sunny 
 noon, the quieting stimulant of a drink. It was 
 a new sensation to Straight-rye Jones. The idea 
 developed itself in the clear sunlight into a vast 
 plan of absorbing importance. 
 
 "I'm a-goin' to move," he muttered to him- 
 self, "out whar the air is fresher. Yes, I got to. 
 It ain't no use in trying it here. I'd give in afore 
 a week. It's too near the old game." 
 
 He began to think seriously of a place called 
 the Hornet's Nest, out near the slaughter-houses, 
 close to the fortifications, where rent was cheap.
 
 338 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 He knew some butchers and some painters who 
 lived out there. It was a long tramp from the 
 heart of Montmartre. This in itself he con- 
 sidered a help. He was like a drowning man 
 grasping at a straw, yet with a certain half- 
 delirious confidence that he could swim. It does 
 not take long for a man in this condition to make 
 up his mind. 
 
 He thought, too, of the two children of Dela- 
 cour's, and vaguely of La Tzigane. 
 
 Then slowly he extracted from an inside pocket 
 a small packet enveloped in three thicknesses of 
 newspaper and tightly bound with a string. Al- 
 though it was his habit to feel often whether it 
 was safe, he had not examined it for a long while. 
 He fumbled at the knots, bit the string through 
 twice with his corn-like teeth, and opened the 
 wrapper carefully. It contained six letters still 
 in their envelopes. From the fifth he drew a 
 faded kodak. 
 
 It was that of a young girl with fair hair, in a 
 short riding skirt. She was standing in the wind 
 at the corner of a ranch house. The only thing 
 distinguishable in her features were her dimpled
 
 STRAIGHT-RYE JONES 339 
 
 chin and her smile. The rest was blotted in the 
 deep shadow of the intense sunlight of Montana. 
 
 For some moments he held the faded kodak 
 in the hollow of his hand, his eyes searching the 
 shadow of her face. The ranch house became a 
 blur. A big tear rolled, dropped, and spattered 
 between it and the bottom of the short skirt. 
 
 Straight-rye Jones closed his eyes. 
 
 "I'm a-goin' to try, Mazie," he prayed. "So 
 help me God, Mazie, I'm a-goin' to try. Yer said 
 yer'd marry me if I could only keep straight. 
 Yer said yer'd marry me," he kept repeating to 
 himself, "an' I'm a-goin' to try." 
 
 A woman with the rouge fresh on her lips, who 
 had been marketing without it in the morning 
 up the Rue Lepic, passed him, and smiled, for 
 she knew him that discreet smile of imbecilic 
 disdain with which her kind favour the intimate 
 stranger. 
 
 Spasmodically Straight-rye Jones clutched the 
 packet of letters, badly creasing the kodak. He 
 did not know why he did this; but, after all, it 
 was only natural, like many gestures that our 
 brain thanks our hands for having done, and
 
 340 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 which the brain appears not to have primarily 
 directed. 
 
 The sparrow flew back, and Straight-rye Jones 
 was glad to see it, for he was smiling now, and 
 telling it a promise. He had to tell it to some- 
 body, you see, who was respectable. 
 
 Having made his decision, Straight-rye Jones 
 changed his domicile from the alley to the Hor- 
 net's Nest. Nothing could be stranger or more 
 incongruous in contrast than this wooden build- 
 ing of studios, which stood isolated in one of the 
 vacant lots opposite the vast entrance yards of 
 the government's slaughter houses. It indeed 
 resembled somewhat a hornet's nest, since it was 
 round, and gray, and had a small door as its 
 single entrance and exit for the swarm of three- 
 score of painters and bohemians, and their sweet- 
 hearts, who found a refuge within, and who were 
 hand-in-hand friends with the butchers opposite. 
 Meat, therefore, was the easier to obtain. 
 
 The whole atmosphere of this strange settle- 
 ment was savage enough. It was as if the 
 Temple of the Knife and Certain Death, whose
 
 STRAIGHT-RYE JONES 341 
 
 floors, corridors, and gutters were continually 
 flushed with blood, had taken the stranded little 
 Temple of Art under its wing. 
 
 It is said that the Hornet's Nest once figured 
 in the exhibition of 1900. However this may be, 
 its aspect was singular. It was as round as a 
 cake. It might easily have served as a round- 
 house for locomotives, an aquarium, or a one- 
 ring circus, had not its second-hand shell been 
 destined to contain as many studios as could be 
 gotten out of its two floors ; the top one being the 
 most popular, since its red-tiled floor, upon which 
 the circle of studio doors opened, was well lighted 
 by a skylight, broiling hot in summer and a sieve 
 for the wind and snow in winter. The ground 
 floor beneath was dark, damp, and as gloomy as a 
 cellar. 
 
 Both floors were provided in the centre with a 
 brass water spigot. The water was free, but 
 not popular. 
 
 In the matter of studios, the cake had been cut 
 into forty thin slices, each segment containing a 
 small skylight, and renting for the modest sum of 
 fifty francs for three months.
 
 342 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 It is needless to say that the crowd who lived 
 there were poor desperately poor. Barely 
 five in the lot spoke the same language, though 
 their sweethearts were mostly French. The 
 Hornet's Nest had gathered beneath its roof 
 Poles, Swedes, and Spaniards; Germans, Greeks, 
 and Russians ; the only American being Straight- 
 rye Jones; and the only Frenchman, a dreamer 
 named Danet, who wrote verses when he was 
 hungriest, and wore to the salon a silk hat, a 
 sticky, multicoloured sweater of uncured Nor- 
 wegian sheep's wool, a frock coat, tennis shoes, 
 and the paint-stained wedding trousers of his 
 room-mate. 
 
 It was in this place, then, that Straight-rye 
 Jones had chosen to keep from drink. The wiry, 
 agile, fair-skinned butchers opposite were too 
 busy with killing to drink much, the inmates of 
 the Hornet's Nest too poor. Coal in winter, 
 when they often chipped in and herded together 
 in a studio, and food all the year round, were in 
 themselves difficult enough to obtain, since no 
 one worked unless driven to it from privation. 
 
 La Tzigane was not long in following Straight-
 
 STRAIGHT-RYE JONES 843 
 
 rye Jones. She, too, rented a studio in the Hor- 
 net's Nest. She cared nothing for Straight-rye 
 Jones, but she wanted a watchdog in case of need, 
 and some one to borrow from in idle necessity. 
 
 Straight-rye Jones lent her a cot bed, two bad 
 pictures, a water pitcher, and thirteen francs; 
 and she stole the rest from him by ingenious 
 degrees, objects from his meagre store of posses- 
 sions that she needed. 
 
 Straight-rye Jones never let her know he knew. 
 He was growing happier daily. The nights when 
 he walked the floor were beginning to grow 
 shorter; yet what he passed through during ten 
 days after his decision on the bench had been far 
 worse than he had experienced in the hospital. 
 
 Not since that morning in the hospital had he 
 taken a drink. 
 
 "It's hell at first," was his only remark. 
 
 Though La Tzigane's door was close to his 
 own on the ground floor, and she spent most 
 of her time loafing in his studio, Straight-rye 
 Jones still stuck to milk, which he practically 
 lived on. He would sit for hours watching an- 
 other fellow paint silent, amused as a child, his
 
 344 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 elbows on his knees; and, though he was hail- 
 fellow-well-met with the crowd in the Hornet's 
 Nest, he was welcomed even more heartily by 
 the butchers. 
 
 Whenever he strolled into the abattoir a shout 
 would go up, for they all knew him. 
 
 " Eh v&ila! Stret Reel " shouted the butchers ; 
 and the girls working with them in the pens 
 shouted "Bonjour" to him, for these butchers 
 will not work without this girl helper, whom they 
 flirt with and chaff, and who is never much over 
 eighteen, well built, chosen for her good looks, 
 dressed in a short skirt, thick, dark-blue stock- 
 ings, and sabots bare-armed, bare-necked; 
 and always a ribbon, pink or blue, in a tiny bow 
 tied in her neatly dressed hair. 
 
 It is she who is the soubrette in the daily 
 killing. Straight-rye Jones knew them all. 
 One Jacqueline fell in love with him until 
 her own sweetheart knifed her; another, a small 
 brunette with hair as black and glossy as a Jap- 
 anese, knitted him a muffler. But neither 
 tempted him to drink. I believe the man who had 
 tempted him would have been knifed for his pains.
 
 STRAIGHT-RYE JONES 345 
 
 Over his studio cot a poorer one than he 
 had lent La Tzigane hung a faded kodak. He 
 had fashioned for it a little wooden frame. No 
 one ever mentioned this photograph save La 
 Tzigane. One afternoon, a week after he hung it 
 up, La Tzigane mentioned it. She made several 
 turns in the studio, glancing at it askance out 
 of her snake-like eyes. 
 
 Finally her curiosity got the better of her. 
 
 "Who is that woman there?" she inquired. 
 
 Then she shut her red mouth tight and backed 
 slowly away from its owner. Straight-rye Jones 
 had not uttered a word in reply. He simply held 
 the door open for her, and La Tzigane backed 
 slowly out of it, gazing at his eyes, in which there 
 lurked something akin to murder. 
 
 A year passed, and again Straight-rye Jones 
 disappeared. Three years, and no one saw him. 
 Some said he had gone to America. This infor- 
 mation was, however, vague. 
 
 One afternoon I turned the corner of the Rue 
 Henri Monnier. To my amazement, he stood 
 before me.
 
 346 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "For gosh sake!" he drawled. You see, his 
 language had grown milder. 
 
 The very little girl he held by the hand I did 
 not recognize as Delacour's. Straight-rye Jones 
 placed her very small hand in mine, for she was 
 shy. 
 
 !< Yours?" I stammered. 
 
 "Yes," he drawled, his whole face alight. 
 "Tell what father's goin' to get yer?" But she 
 pressed her fair little head against her father's 
 coat. "One er them little" he coaxed, and 
 bent to reassure her "one er them little - 
 them little - 
 
 " Rockin'-hor-thiz," lisped the little girl. 
 
 There flashed across my mind the kodak from 
 Montana and I was right- 
 
 La Tzigane, after Straight-rye Jones's disappearance, 
 endeavoured to inveigle into her heart a butcher who had both 
 meat and money. This proved to be a dangerous game. The 
 last I heard of her she was in the hospital with a knife 
 wound in her back stabbed by the butcher's sweetheart. 
 
 F.B. S.
 
 CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 "THE ARRANGEMENT OF MONSIEUR 
 DE COURCELLES"
 
 We always go to the salon, no matter how poor we are, or 
 how poor it is. Besagon and Vautrin had promised to meet 
 me there and neither of them had turned up. I was glad 
 afterward they never did turn up, for otherwise this story 
 could have never been written. F. B. S.
 
 CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 THE ARRANGEMENT OF MONSIEUR DE COUR- 
 CELLES " 
 
 rFIHE autumn salon had opened. Seen from 
 the gallery where Hollister and I stood, hah* 
 of artistic and fashionable Paris this afternoon 
 swarmed like black ants in and out among the 
 acres of sculpture under the mammoth glass roof 
 of the Grand Palais. 
 
 Antlike, the throng moved ceaselessly over- 
 running the broad stairways, sweeping up to 
 rooms after rooms of good and bad pictures, or 
 edged along their adjoining corridors choked 
 
 349
 
 350 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 with the annual miscellany of drawings, jewellery, 
 and bronze. 
 
 Upon the spacious floor, lean, long-haired 
 painters, their frock coats brushed up for the 
 occasion, chatted with fat, well-fed critics. Here 
 too, had come the sculptor and his model, the 
 girl in a pre-Raphaelite gown of her own inven- 
 tion, her black hair worn in a bandeau half hiding 
 her tiny shells of ears. 
 
 Jack and I were looking at a bust by Rodin 
 when we ran across the young painter, Paul 
 Desmoulins, a tall black-eyed fellow of thirty, im- 
 maculate in a white silk stock and a black velvet 
 waistcoat. With him was a woman, slender 
 even in her furs, with a complexion like a rose of 
 Nice. 
 
 Whether it was the satin sheen of her golden 
 hair, which brought the passing gaze of hundreds 
 upon her as she passed, the pearly whiteness of 
 her teeth, her lithe grace as she moved, or the 
 alert, fearless look in her blue eyes, I do not 
 know. There was something in her whole per- 
 sonality which attracted and dominated. 
 
 Desmoulins grasped Hollister's hand heartily.
 
 MONSIEUR DE COURCELLES 351 
 
 "Well, well!" he cried. "How are you, my 
 boy?" and with a bow he courteously presented 
 Mademoiselle Coralie de Favrier. 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed mademoiselle, with a frank 
 smile, and she lapsed into her broken English. 
 
 "So it iz zat I have zee pleasure of meeting 
 you, Monsieur Holleestaire," and she turned to 
 me. "You see, I know already since long time 
 your friend ah, yes! I see somezing in 
 London by him in zee Gallerie Nationale." 
 
 "Oh, my lion," laughed Jack, "I'm afraid its 
 pretty bad." 
 
 "Notzing of zee kind, Monsieur. It was not 
 bad only it is very difficult to know a lion 
 zee leetle characteristics " 
 
 "You may not be aware," interrupted Des- 
 moulins in French, "that Mademoiselle de Fav- 
 rier is speaking as a connoisseur." 
 
 "Ah! my friend! you must not flatter me so," 
 replied the girl, laying her firm gloved hand on 
 the arm of her escort. "Non! It is not zat I 
 am an artiste, but you see I have many lion my- 
 self." 
 
 "In sculpture, Mademoiselle?" ventured I.
 
 352 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "No, Monsieur, zat would be easier. Mine 
 are in zee cages.'* As she said it her blue eyes 
 half closed with a gaze in them as steady as 
 steel. 
 
 "Of course you do not know," she resumed 
 quietly- "you have nevaire seen me? Ah! 
 you artistes go so leetle to zee theatre. But," 
 she added, seriously, "you shall come both of 
 you, I am going to send you a box, zen you shall 
 see my lions. I am at zee Folies Bergeres and 
 zis bad boy," she said, archly turning to Des- 
 moulins, "who always make me zee compliment, 
 he shall come too." 
 
 We presented her with our grateful thanks and 
 our cards. The latter she tucked safely within a 
 hidden pocket of her muff. 
 
 Hollister's eyes brightened. 
 
 "Wait a moment," said he, "y es it was last 
 year," and with a quick gesture he exclaimed: 
 "Why, of course I have seen you, Mademoiselle. 
 You were then at the Olympia. You were train- 
 ing a den of leopards. I shall never forget it. 
 They were superb." 
 
 " And myself a little fool," she added. " Really,
 
 MONSIEUR DE COURCELLES 353 
 
 I shall nevaire, nevaire do zat again. I love life 
 too much." 
 
 " Come, show us your new group," pleaded 
 Desmoulins. "Mademoiselle has been search- 
 ing the catalogue for it where have they put 
 it, Hollister?" 
 
 "Oh! they've stuck it over there in the corner 
 near the stairs," said Jack, modestly. "Really, 
 I haven't the heart to show it to mademoiselle. 
 You see, if it were a group of nymphs or peas- 
 ants or anything else I wouldn't mind - 
 but lions! I'm afraid my 'Lion and Mate' is a 
 failure." 
 
 "But, Monsieur!" exclaimed mademoiselle. 
 " It is for zat I come ! Ah ! you artistes are impos- 
 sible. Truly. Come, I insist." She stretched 
 forth her hand to him. 
 
 "It is so bad," pleaded Jack. 
 
 "Nonsenze!" laughed Coralie de Favrier, and 
 Jack led the way. 
 
 "Forgive me," he said abruptly. "I should 
 be only too grateful for your criticism, honest 
 critics are so rare." 
 
 " Bah ! Zey are so stupide ! " returned Coralie.
 
 354 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "It is so vary, vary easy to criticize, so difficult 
 to create, isn't it?" 
 
 As she looked up at Hollister, he was conscious 
 of the courage in those blue eyes, and if there was 
 anything Jack admired in a woman it was cour- 
 age. Slender and graceful as she was, there was 
 a sense of physical strength about that finely 
 trained body of hers, which fascinated him, a 
 woman who could risk her life as she had in that 
 den of leopards and who even now was in daily 
 peril, who possessed a courage, a quick wit, pres- 
 ence of mind and an indomitable will. And yet, 
 after all, Coralie was feminine. You would never 
 have guessed this pretty woman was a lion tamer. 
 
 Coralie studied Jack's "Lion and Mate" care- 
 fully, her keen glance running along the muscles 
 of the lion's back who, with muzzle to the ground, 
 was scenting a fresh trail. Then she began to 
 scrutinize the lioness crouched beside her mate. 
 
 "Ah, yes! zat is better- ' she cried with 
 enthusiasm. "Zat is much better. Her hind- 
 quarters you make a leetle too thin, but, par- 
 bleu! zee weight is zere. It is zee lion which has 
 fault. You make him smell a fresh trail, eh?
 
 MONSIEUR DE COURCELLES 355 
 
 He going to kill for his sweetheart, eh? Well, 
 zen his ears would lie flatter to his skull." 
 
 "By George, I knew it," exclaimed Jack to 
 me. "That was the thing I worried over for 
 weeks. The impression of scent." 
 
 "It is so discouraging working from rapid 
 memorandums of that lazy overfed lot of lions 
 at the Jardin des Plantes," explained Hollister. 
 
 "Of course, of course, I understand," replied 
 Coralie, "but you must not go zere, my friend; 
 not to zee public Zoo where zey lie about in zee 
 sun and get so fat as an old concierge. Nonl 
 I have a better idea ! You shall have one of my 
 lions as model. I shall arrange. I shall come 
 to your studio some morning soon and we talk it 
 over, eh? You shall show me zee new tiger zat 
 you make in marble." 
 
 "Can I expect you this week?" asked Jack, 
 enthusiastically. 
 
 Desmoulins raised his eyes, met the gaze of the 
 girl and lowered them. 
 
 "Zen Thursday morning," she said, "at ten." 
 And with a frank little nod to us both she swept 
 away in the throng on the arm of Desmoulins,
 
 356 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 who, good fellow as he was, concealed his sudden 
 jealousy, I must confess, with poor grace. 
 
 Thursday morning Hollister's studio received 
 an extra cleaning. I helped him straighten 
 things out, stowing the trash behind the curtain 
 and sweeping into the dark corners as much of 
 the debris of failures as we could. Suddenly, 
 the rattle and abrupt stopping of a cab put an 
 end to this hasty cleaning. 
 
 "There she is!" said Jack, shoving the broom 
 under the divan. "Don't poke your head in 
 evidence out of the window, it's ill bred." 
 
 "Hark!" whispered Jack, as the silky swish 
 and rustle of skirts preceded by a slouching tread 
 approached the door. 
 
 " The devil ! " he muttered. " I'll bet you that 
 Desmoulins is in the cab with her; he's never 
 without her, in fact." 
 
 A sharp rap brought us to our feet, and Hoi- 
 lister strode over to slip the bolt. As he did so 
 the door flew open. I shall never forget the 
 sight in that open doorway. There stood a full- 
 grown lion, and a little behind him, one gloved
 
 MONSIEUR DE COURCELLES 357 
 
 hand buried in his shaggy mane, smiled Made- 
 moiselle Coralie de Favrier, the slight cord that 
 tethered the lion wrapped about her wrist. 
 
 I am not used to full-grown lions butting into 
 one's studio at ten in the morning, and I edged 
 to a safer corner. 
 
 Coralie was still smiling, smiling mischievously 
 through those clear blue eyes of hers, but I saw a 
 flash of pride in them as she looked at Hollister, 
 erect, within a yard of her pet. 
 
 " You see, my good friend," she said gayly, "I 
 have kept my promise. You shall make zis tune 
 a sketch of a forest bred. 
 
 "Come, Monsieur," she added, nodding to me. 
 " You must not have zee fear. He will not hurt 
 you. He is my good old Jean Bart. He is as 
 gentle as a kitten." 
 
 She led the lion to the corner beside the divan 
 and passed the cord with a hah 6 hitch about 
 Jack's brass fender. 
 
 " There ! Lie down ! " she commanded gently, 
 and the great beast settled to the floor, turning 
 in his huge paws, one blow of which could have 
 crushed the skull of an ox.
 
 358 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "See!" cried Coralie. "His teeth are almost 
 gone, poor old beast!" She stripped off her 
 gloves and tossed them on the divan and opened 
 Jean Bart's jaws. 
 
 "You mean to say you brought him here all the 
 way from the Folies Bergere?" exclaimed Jack. 
 
 " Yes, why not? " laughed Coralie. " We came 
 in a closed cab. I know zee coachman. He 
 used to be my groom at zee Nouveau Cirque. 
 No one see us." 
 
 "It's a good thing my old concierge lives next 
 door. She would have had a fit," replied Jack. 
 
 "Forgive me for my timidity," I apologized. 
 "I'm afraid my nerves are not as steady as Mr. 
 Hollister's." 
 
 "Ah! zat is quite natural, quite natural," she 
 
 replied. "But Monsieur Holleestaire," she 
 
 added, looking up at Jack with a little gleam of 
 
 pride, "you were not afraid. You stood zee 
 
 ground like an old hand. You have seen lions 
 
 loose before, eh? Yes, I am right, am I not? 
 
 Zere was somezing in your eyes zat told me so." 
 
 : *Yes, once," confessed Jack. 
 
 ''You were training once?" she asked, with as
 
 MONSIEUR DE COURCELLES 359 
 
 much naturalness as if she had inquired if he 
 had once studied law. 
 
 "No, shooting." 
 
 "In Africa?" 
 
 'Yes, with Sir Roderick Welch. We were 
 gone ten months until the rain cut us off. I 
 killed two," added Jack. "An old and a young 
 one, but Sir Roderick killed four. He is a fine 
 shot and a fine fellow." 
 
 Again Coralie looked into his eyes with that 
 same flash of pride she had given him as she 
 entered. "I too have been in Africa," she said, 
 simply. 
 
 She was seated now in the cozy corner of the 
 divan. 
 
 " I knew it," she exclaimed. :< You Americans 
 have zee courage. I like zat. Zat is why zis 
 morning I come to you. Listen ! 
 
 "Somezing dreadful has happened. Last 
 night at zee Cafe de Paris," she raised her hand 
 as Jack started to speak. "Listen!" she re- 
 peated, almost severely. "What a dinner last 
 night! What a dinner! It is zat jalousie which 
 makes always some stupide trouble, eh ?
 
 360 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 " You know Desmoulins? " she went on rapidly, 
 with a toss of her head. 
 
 Jack and I nodded. 
 
 " Well, you know he vary fond of me. He ask 
 me always zat I marry him. An' I say no, not 
 yet, and so he ask me thousand times zee same 
 sing. In zee theatre, at zee supper, oh, la, la!" 
 and she shrugged her shoulders, hopelessly. " He 
 is quite crazy, zat Desmoulins, an' last night we 
 dine at zee Cafe de Paris." 
 
 "I see," interrupted Jack, "and there some 
 brute looked at you in a way Desmoulins did 
 not like." 
 
 "No, not zat exactly. Franchard, zee archi- 
 tect, he come into zee cafe, and he is an old friend 
 of Desmoulins. Zey are what you say in Eng- 
 lish, like brozaires, and Desmoulins he make 
 Franchard anozer place at zee table. Well, mon 
 Dieu, we have not eat zee fish before in come 
 Gaston de Courcelles. You know zat old bear? " 
 
 Jack hesitated. 
 
 ' My goodness, you do not know zat De Cour- 
 celles? Why, everybody in Paris know him. 
 It is he who arrange zee zee duels like Diebler
 
 MONSIEUR DE COURCELLES 361 
 
 arrange zee execution rfest-ce pas? Zat stu- 
 pide fat old De Courcelles, wiz his red face an' 
 his big moustache! and he is so stupide oh, la, 
 la! He always make trouble. So zat old fool 
 he come dine wiz us so we make four at table and 
 Desmoulins and Franchard zey drink two bottles 
 of champagne while zat old bear he pay me zee 
 compliment. He like I marry him, too, and 
 Franchard he want I marry him and he ask me 
 hundred times but nevaire before Desmoulins 
 for zey were zee best of friends. So when zee 
 bill came Franchard he pay it as quick as a 
 prestidigitateur and zat make Desmoulins mad. 
 He say Franchard is a bad friend to him, and zen 
 De Courcelles he get redder in zee face, and he say 
 somezing to Desmoulins zat make Franchard 
 and he look at each ozer as white as my 
 mouchoir." 
 
 "Um!" said Jack, and he wheeled where he 
 sat, regarding Coralie intently. 
 
 "People begin look at us and I say I going to 
 leave and I send for zee coachman for my coupe, 
 and when zee maid she help me on wiz my cloak, 
 Desmoulins he slap Franchard's face."
 
 362 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 The lion raised his shaggy head, as Coralie's 
 voice rose in her intensity. 
 
 "Now zey is going to fight, for zat old fool De 
 Courcelles, he say zey must fight for zee sake of 
 zere honaire. I go now to see him." She rose 
 from the divan with a defiant look in her eyes. 
 
 "I vill not have zat duel on my account," she 
 cried, " zat I vill not have. Zey are crazy, all of 
 zem. I go talk to De Courcelles. I leave Jean 
 Bart viz you. I shall be back for him in half an 
 hour. You need not be afraid, he will be as 
 quiet as a dog." 
 
 "I see," muttered Jack, and he fell to pacing 
 the floor, as Coralie adjusted her veil. 
 
 "And you say De Courcelles arranged it?" 
 
 questioned Hollister, looking gloomily up into 
 
 Coralie's eyes, as she held out her hand to him. 
 
 "Yes, it was he - " she answered. "It is not 
 
 zee first time he arrange zose horrid affairs." 
 
 The lion rose, dragging the fender with him, 
 then settled down obedient to the command of 
 his mistress. He evidently understood, for, 
 though he watched her every movement with his 
 old gray eyes, he made no further attempt to
 
 MONSIEUR DE COURCELLES 363 
 
 follow her to the door. " Au revoir, my friend," 
 said Coralie, and, with a word to Jean Bart, she 
 closed the door behind her. 
 
 We were alone with the lion. 
 
 Do you know how it feels to be alone with a 
 lion? It is an uncomfortable sensation, a sense 
 of being helpless before the king of beasts with 
 only his good will between you and death. 
 
 I watched him as Jack made half a dozen 
 memorandum sketches of him. He was majestic 
 as he lay there in the corner of the studio with 
 his ponderous head, his tawny mane and those 
 dignified eyes of his. As lions go, Jean Bart was 
 an exception, for his mistress had told us he had 
 never yet " gone bad," and more than once he had 
 saved the life of Coralie once in Berlin when 
 she had slipped, (that calamity, the most hope- 
 less that can happen to a trainer of wild beasts) 
 and Jean Bart had defended her from two other 
 lions. Now, he was too old to work and too 
 wise to be savage. Occasionally a low moan 
 escaped him, but it was more like the whine of 
 an obedient dog left on a doorstep. 
 
 "He's lovely!" said Jack, laying down his
 
 364 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 sketch block. "Have a cigarette?" and he 
 brought me the box from the end of the divan, 
 then he crossed to the stove and stood smoking 
 for some time in silence. 
 
 "Then," he said at length. "I wonder what 
 would happen to De Courcelles if he ever got as 
 far West as Cripple Creek? I can see De Cour- 
 celles trying to ' arrange ' things some Saturday 
 night in the American 'Eagle Bar' or down at 
 'Four Star' when the gang was flush. He'd 
 get all the arrangement he wanted. He doesn't 
 even deserve a pine box. I've seen better men 
 than he go into six feet of dirt without one. I 
 didn't tell mademoiselle that I knew him, but I 
 do. He was raising trouble then between two 
 old friends, just as he's doing now, for he was 
 responsible for the death of the young Baron 
 de Grim, shot dead, in one of those 'arrange- 
 ments,' by the Baron's best friend, Paul Cha- 
 bron, over the dancer, Lea Terrelli. You can see 
 Chabron any night you care to dining alone at 
 Weber's. He is only thirty-eight, but he looks 
 sixty. It broke his heart. Oh, De Courcelles 
 takes jolly good care he doesn't fight himself."
 
 MONSIEUR DE COURCELLES 365 
 
 " What is to be done? " I asked. " It is evident 
 Franchard was drunk and Desmoulins lost his 
 temper. You remember, we used to see them 
 continually together. Why ! they seemed insepa- 
 rable pals." 
 
 "Of course," said Hollister, "for years the 
 best of pals," he broke out hotly, "it's an 
 outrage. You might as well have a duel be- 
 tween us. Bah!" and he threw his cigarette 
 into the stove. "Why, there isn't one duel out 
 of a hundred around Paris," he added, "that if 
 the principals had their way, wouldn't be settled 
 by a handshake." 
 
 The lion raised his head. Again the swish of 
 silk outside. 
 
 A knock interrupted us. 
 
 "It is impossible," cried Coralie, rushing in, 
 " I have talked to zat old beast of a De Courcelles 
 -mon Dieu! It is not pleasant to cry before 
 an old pig like zat. He vill listen to not- 
 zing." She went over, buried her gloved hand 
 in the lion's mane and suddenly, with a 
 choking voice turned upon Hollister. "If I 
 had a man to deal viz like you, he would
 
 366 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 listen. You are brave, but zat old De Cour- 
 celles is a coward." 
 
 "And they are going to fight? " muttered Jack. 
 
 : 'Yes," returned Coralie. 'To-morrow at 
 Vincennes . ' ' The blue eyes were looking straight 
 into his now and he saw them fill with tears. 
 
 "Um!" remarked Hollister. 
 
 "I must go," she said. "My cab is waiting 
 and my lions must be fed." She spoke to Jean 
 Bart, slipped the cord from the fender, wound it 
 about her wrist, and led him to the door. 
 
 "Now see, please, if zere is any one on zee 
 stairs," she requested. 
 
 Hollister opened the door, stepped out and 
 peered down the rickety flight. 
 
 "Not a soul," he said. "One moment!" he 
 added. "Do you know the hour of the duel?" 
 
 "Yes," she returned. "At six, as soon as it is 
 light, in zat leetle woods back of zee deserted 
 cottage." 
 
 "Good," said Hollister. "How did you man- 
 age to find out?" 
 
 "I gave De Courcelles' valet a louis," she re- 
 plied, half closing her blue eyes.
 
 MONSIEUR DE COURCELLES 367 
 
 With a lunging gait the lion descended the 
 stairs, Coralie holding him in check and speaking 
 to him as he picked his way to the bottom. 
 
 A moment later we heard the door of the cab 
 slam shut. 
 
 An hour before the earliest street cries had 
 echoed along that aristocratic highway, the 
 Boulevard St. Germain, the valet of Monsieur 
 Gaston de Courcelles noiselessly entered the 
 bedroom of his master. His tread was catlike 
 in its softness. 
 
 Monsieur de Courcelles lay snoring, his fero- 
 cious moustache showing above a bed quilt of 
 scarlet satin. 
 
 The valet drew back the heavy curtains of the 
 window. 
 
 "Bah!" he muttered to himself as he gazed 
 out into the chill fog. "A villain of a morning. 
 It will be muddy enough this time, mon 
 
 He placed a nickelled pitcher of hot water be- 
 side an Empire shaving table, laid a pair of pol- 
 ished boots beside it, and screwed three turquoise
 
 368 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 studs into a shirt with a frilled bosom. Then he 
 bent over his master, and said: 
 
 "Monsieur, it is a quarter to five." 
 
 "Good," growled the voice beneath the quilt. 
 
 Neither Desmoulins nor Franchard possessing 
 valets, the former had risen an hour before the 
 first glimmer of dawn after a sleepless night in 
 his studio, while Franchard was at that moment 
 in his room across the Seine awaiting the arrival 
 of his seconds and trying to choke down some 
 coffee and half a crescent. 
 
 Franchard had had the misfortune to look in 
 the glass. 
 
 He was ghastly pale, half ill, and shook with a 
 nervous tremor. 
 
 Meantime Mademoiselle Coralie de Favrier 
 paced the floor of her boudoir. She too, had not 
 slept. 
 
 An hour later, within a muddy patch of woods 
 drenched with fog in the Bois de Vincennes, Des- 
 moulins and Franchard stood apart, avoiding 
 each other's eyes. Hatless, and each in a loose 
 white shirt, collarless and open at the throat, 
 they stood out in marked contrast to the half
 
 MONSIEUR DE COURCELLES 869 
 
 dozen men who had assembled in their top hats 
 and overcoats. As to these, their deportment 
 and conversation were as conventional as their 
 dress upon similar occasions. They spoke, as 
 undertakers do at a funeral. 
 
 The drenching fog hah* obscured the leafless 
 branches of the trees. Beside the trunk of one, 
 bending over a polished mahogany case contain- 
 ing a glittering brace of blue-barrelled pistols, 
 stood De Courcelles, enveloped in a fur coat, the 
 collar turned up to the brim of his sleek, silk hat. 
 Beside him stood a sparsely built young doctor 
 unwinding a long bandage, the end of whch 
 coiled itself like a snake in a small black valise 
 open at his feet. A little beyond, three carriages 
 waited at the edge of the wood, their drivers keep- 
 ing at a respectful distance from the party. 
 
 It was at this instant that a fourth coupe drew 
 rapidly up behind the rest, and a tall young man 
 with broad shoulders sprang out and strode 
 toward the sinister group among the trees. 
 
 The group turned in amazement, De Courcelles 
 glowering at the intruder. 
 
 It was Hollister.
 
 370 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "Gentlemen," began Hollister, raising his hat, 
 a formality which was returned by the others, 
 despite their feelings. 
 
 "Monsieur Gaston de Courcelles, I believe," 
 said Jack, facing the bristling moustache, and 
 with a sweeping glance at the others, he con- 
 tinued: "I am fully aware, gentlemen, that I 
 am an intruder." 
 
 His first words had told the others by his ac- 
 cent that he was not only an intruder but a for- 
 eigner, a fact which to them doubled the insult. 
 
 " I have come here to interview you, Monsieur 
 de Courcelles." 
 
 The rest were silent, seemingly too amazed to 
 do much but mutter and gesticulate. De Cour- 
 celles' eyes were blazing. 
 
 "You, you come here to interview me," he 
 snarled, "y u come to make trouble, eh?" his 
 fat neck growing purple with rage. 
 
 "Yes, I remember you now," he sneered. 
 "You were a friend of Madame Terrili's." 
 
 "A chance acquaintance," returned Jack 
 coolly, "not a friend, but I have every reason to 
 believe you knew that woman better than I,
 
 MONSIEUR DE COURCELLES 371 
 
 since you were so interested in the murder of the 
 Baron de Grim." 
 
 "Murder!" cried De Courcelles, hoarsely. 
 "What do you mean?" He paled as he said 
 it, his fat hands slinking into his pock- 
 ets. 
 
 "I mean precisely what I say," said Jack. 
 
 De Courcelles' puffy eyelids half closed until 
 the vicious little pupils behind them sparkled 
 like a snake's. 
 
 'You tell me I am concerned in a murder, 
 eh? You come here to insult me before these, 
 these gentlemen? I tell you the Baron de Grim 
 and Chabron fought fairly." 
 
 ;< They might have," returned Jack, "if the 
 sight on the Baron's pistol had not been tampered 
 with, and had the Baron's trigger pulled as easily 
 as his adversary's." 
 
 "Bah!" thundered De Courcelles, "you Ang- 
 lais speak from the tittle-tattle of the riffraff of 
 your dirty cafes." 
 
 "One hears much in Paris, sooner or later," 
 answered Jack, "especially when it concerns the 
 honour of two old friends. I heard this from
 
 372 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 an eyewitness in the French Embassy. Besides, 
 I'm not English, I'm an American." 
 
 : 'You dog of an Anglais," roared De Cour- 
 celles. ' You shall pay me for this, pay me with 
 your skin." 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed Jack. "I was waiting for 
 that, that is what I have come for, for you, 
 Monsieur de Courcelles. It is you who are respon- 
 sible for this duel. Now you shall answer to me." 
 
 Jack's great shoulders towered above the ex- 
 cited group about him. 
 
 " Now do you understand? " he cried. " I am 
 doing the arranging this time. There will be no 
 pistols or seconds in it either." With a quick 
 gesture he ripped off his coat and stood with his 
 fist in De Courcelles' face, the rest keeping at a 
 safe distance from his great arms, De Courcelles 
 backing away from him in a torrent of French. 
 
 "Right now" thundered Jack. "Do you 
 hear? You'll stand up and fight me now like a 
 man. We'll fight like men fight in my country, 
 not like monkeys." 
 
 De Courcelles shielded his face, livid with 
 sudden fear, with his fat hands.
 
 MONSIEUR DE COURCELLES 373 
 
 "I did not arrange it," he managed to 
 stammer. "I tell you this duel is between Mes- 
 sieurs Desmoulins and Franchard. Have a care 
 what you say to me." 
 
 :< You lie!" shouted Jack. "You did arrange 
 it! Shut up! If you open your head again, 
 I'll smash it." 
 
 Then De Courcelles did a foolish thing, for 
 he put all the strength of his big frame into a 
 straight swinging side kick. He was an expert 
 at it, but Hollister was too quick for him. He 
 sidestepped, tripped him, and with a swinging 
 left-hander sent him reeling to the ground and out. 
 
 The excited gentlemen made no resistance. 
 Hardly an articulate word escaped them until 
 they had picked up the half -conscious De Cour- 
 celles and carried him to his carriage. Then a 
 volley of French reached Jack, and they con- 
 tinued to gesticulate and curse him until a bend 
 in the road hid them from view. 
 
 During the entire row neither Desmoulins nor 
 Franchard had spoken a word. They still stood 
 apart, but now they had forgotten to avoid each 
 other's eyes.
 
 374 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "Shake hands, you two," said Jack. "Come, 
 what's the use? This blackguardly business is 
 at an end. Come, be friends and forget it." 
 
 Desmoulins was the first to speak. 
 
 "Franchard," he said, "I have no wish to risk 
 your life or to risk mine. If I were to kill you, 
 I should never forgive myself." 
 
 Franchard gazed at the muddy ground. Then 
 he looked up at his friend. He was deathly 
 white and swayed visibly like an ill man. Sud- 
 denly he turned and stumbled forward to- 
 ward the outstretched hand of Desmoulins. 
 As he reeled and fainted, Hollister caught 
 him. 
 
 Half an hour later a closed cab drew up under 
 the entrance of Mademoiselle Coralie de Fav- 
 rier's apartment. Jack sprang out, leaped up to 
 the fifth floor and rang the bell. He had not 
 long to wait. A sudden wrench of the knob and 
 Coralie opened the door. For some moments 
 she was unable to speak. She just looked at 
 him with her blue eyes, as feminine as her hair, 
 and full of tears.
 
 MONSIEUR DE COURCELLES 375 
 
 'Tell me," she managed to gasp. The hand 
 she gave Hollister trembled. 
 
 "It is all over," said Jack grimly. 
 
 "Desmoulins," she stammered. "He is not 
 hurt. Ah! No, no! Zat is not zee truth." 
 
 Jack followed her into the salon where she 
 flung herself on a low couch in a frenzy of grief. 
 
 " Come ! " said Jack. " Come with me at once. 
 Get your things on. We are going out. Only 
 you can help things now. You must do as I tell 
 you." 
 
 "What you mean?" she asked between her 
 sobs, her tired eyes searching his own. 
 
 "Come at once," repeated Jack, "my cab is 
 below." 
 
 She obeyed him, mechanically, as one of her 
 lions might have obeyed her, and without a word 
 went to her room for her hat and wraps. When 
 she returned she was more mistress of herself, 
 but she dared not trust herself to speak. 
 
 They descended the stairs in silence. 
 
 "Are you alone?" she whispered pleadingly, 
 as they reached the landing of the second flight. 
 
 "No," said Jack, "a gentleman is with me."
 
 376 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "His second?" she faltered. 
 
 "A friend," answered Jack, evasively, as he 
 led the way to the waiting cab. 
 
 "The horse is fidgety, get in quickly," cau- 
 tioned Jack, with a smile, as her tiny foot touched 
 the muddy step of the cab. 
 
 A cry of joy escaped Coralie. 
 
 "Paul! Ah, my dearest!" The next instant 
 she was in Desmoulin's arms, sobbing like a child. 
 
 "Driver!" shouted Hollister as he got in and 
 closed the door, "quick to the Cafe de Paris, 
 we are as hungry as wolves ! " 
 
 One Sunday afternoon last September I went up to St. 
 Cloud. As usual there was a great crowd, most of it around 
 a collection of wagons one of those small travelling circuses. 
 In the main cage a girl in tights was defying a roaring, blood- 
 thirsty lion. It was the same old Jean Bart, but the girl was 
 not Coralie. Coralie married Desmoulins. F. B. S.
 
 CHAPTER TWELVE 
 "THE REFUGEES"
 
 CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 "THE REFUGEES" 
 
 T TAVE you ever seen a thousand francs, 
 -* * Marie? all at once in a drawer - 
 fifty bright gold louis?" 
 
 "Parbleu!" exclaimed Marie, her black eyes 
 opening in wonder. 
 
 I might as well have asked that good little 
 model of mine, "When you last took a brisk 
 walk on the moon do you remember the million 
 you tripped over?" 
 
 "Listen, my child," I continued. "Come, 
 draw the big chair over here by the stove - 
 
 379
 
 380 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 put this over your shoulders. There's a draught 
 from the skylight. You've posed enough for 
 to-day. B-r-r ! What dirty weather ! ' ' 
 
 She did as I bade her with her eager smile of 
 a gamine which asks for nothing and expects 
 naught, and when I had dragged my painting 
 stool up to the comforting stove and relighted 
 my pipe with a scrap of a discarded drawing of 
 her trim head, I became serious and proceeded. 
 
 " It seems like a fairy tale, a miracle, but it is 
 nevertheless true," I resumed. 
 
 "AhrsI" breathed Marie, still wondering 
 what I really meant. "Fifty louis! Parbleu! 
 Ah, no," she laughed. "One does not see fifty 
 louis all at once one never sees fifty louis." 
 
 "Listen, my child. You remember the day 
 you posed for Laurent?" 
 
 She nodded her pretty head. 
 
 "Perfectly." 
 
 "And we all lunched together, at the Faisan 
 D'or? you and Vautrin and Laurent and I? 
 Very well. Vautrin, you remember, stopped at 
 the cafe on the corner for some cigarettes and 
 insisted on buying a lottery ticket, and you re-
 
 "THE REFUGEES" 381 
 
 call my telling you I went halves on it. You 
 said we were both crazy. Well, my infant, 
 we've won!" 
 
 "What!" gasped Marie in amazement. 
 
 "We're rich you and Vautrin and I; and 
 it's Christmas time, and you're going to have a 
 real gown, my little one, and go to supper at 
 the Cafe de Paris, like a grande dame, Christ- 
 mas Eve. There! there! You must not cry; 
 you must be gay. We're going to be gay, I tell 
 you! What a fete! Ah, you shall see!" 
 
 The tears ceased, but she was trembling with 
 excitement. Then her firm young arms went 
 about my neck in a hug of camaraderie, and 
 with the surprise, and the joy, and the sudden- 
 ness of it all, the tears came again. 
 
 "You must not," she managed to protest at 
 length. 
 
 "En fete!" I cried, and catching both her 
 small hands in my own I forced her to dance 
 about the stove. 
 
 "You must not!" she pleaded. "I do not 
 want the dress. It is foolish, the the fe'te. 
 It is not right. Both you and Vautrin are poor."
 
 382 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 "Bah! I am used to it." 
 
 "That's just it. You're going to have a 
 change. If you think we're going to save a pal- 
 try thousand francs won in a lottery for our old 
 age, and yours, you're mistaken. No! No! 
 We shall live! We shall eat and drink and 
 be merry. Eh! my little one? That's right, 
 smile. You shall see how beautiful you shall 
 be; how every one will gaze at you. New 
 Year's Eve we shall sup at the Abbaye The- 
 leme. Ha! ha! That's right laugh, laugh, my 
 little one. En fete, eh? En fete!" But I did 
 not need to insist, the spirit of fete was already 
 tingling in this good little Parisienne's veins. 
 
 "Ah! but it's chid" she cried. "Mais c'est 
 chic mais c'est chic!" 
 
 "Come, be quick," I insisted. "Get into 
 your things. Come up to Vautrin's. It is in his 
 drawer fifty gold louis ! You shall see for 
 yourself." 
 
 A few moments later we were rushing up the 
 stairs to Vautrin's studio door, and at the first 
 rap that genial bohemian of a painter opened
 
 "THE REFUGEES" 383 
 
 it wide with a yell. He'd been waiting, in fact, 
 until I had broken the good news to Marie. 
 Then he bowed gravely and stood there smiling 
 into Marie's black eyes. 
 
 "It is not true!" insisted Marie. 
 
 : *Your Majesty shall see," he grinned, and 
 kissed her on both cheeks. "The fortune, your 
 Majesty," he added, drawing himself up dram- 
 atically to his full height, "lies in the second 
 drawer yonder of the paint cabinet. Your 
 Majesty has but to glance within." 
 
 She approached on tiptoe, with the eager 
 expectancy of a child, and peered into the 
 drawer with its treasure. 
 
 " Comme c'est chic! " she gasped. 
 
 It was thus our Christmas fte began. 
 
 What a kind old lottery to have remembered 
 us and the direct oire gown green as an 
 emerald, accenting the whiteness of Marie's 
 young neck and arms and the jet blackness of 
 her hair, which we adorned with two bands of 
 old gold whose rosettes half hid her small pink 
 ears. She was adorable; but then Marie would
 
 384 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 be adorable even in rags. You do not know 
 Madeleine Lefevre. Never mind! Madeleine 
 was once a model like Marie. Now she directs 
 a shop in the Rue de la Paix, a very smart place 
 for gowns, I assure you, and the interest she 
 took in that emerald vision was a delight. 
 Vautrin and I felt like twin millionaires as Marie 
 sat between us and the manequins filed past. 
 Then came that eventful morning when Made- 
 leine Lefevre called up the tube: 
 
 "La robe pour Mademoiselle Marie" and 
 lo and behold, down came the emerald gown - 
 finished carried over the arm of a freckled 
 little girl in a black waist. 
 
 Marie almost cried with joy. 
 
 Ah, what a fte we had! The Cafe de Paris 
 jammed during that midnight, all night supper. 
 The room shimmering in light, gay with aban- 
 don, fair women, hot food, and cold wine. They 
 danced, sometimes on the tables, sometimes on 
 the floor; they sang. People you had never met 
 before became bosom friends before daylight, 
 a bedlam of tambourines and Chinese paper 
 caps with a queue that blew up on high and a shrill
 
 "THE REFUGEES" 385 
 
 whistle on the end and all through it Marie 
 was adorable. Young bloods, old viveurs, 
 officers, celebrities, bent with the permission of 
 the two millionaires, and kissed her small hand. 
 The compliments only made her laugh. 
 
 "Madame, you are adorable." 
 
 "Madame, you are exquisite." 
 
 Eh, Voila! It was daylight, a gray, drizzling, 
 winter daylight when we left; and for a whole 
 week we three, Marie, Vautrin, and I, lunched 
 where we pleased. Then occurred an even wilder 
 all-night supper at the Abbaye Theleme, wild 
 enough to have satisfied Rabelais, and the 
 emerald gown withstood it all. Indeed there 
 was not a spot upon it. Marie had been very 
 careful. 
 
 All this I have described is but a passing in- 
 cident in the realm of Parisian Bohemia. The 
 following week both Vautrin and myself were 
 off shooting in that splendid game country be- 
 low Orleans, in Sologne. There were days now 
 when we cracked away at the ducks and pheas- 
 ants, at hares and the swift French partridge,
 
 386 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 and nights after dinner before the roaring wood 
 fire of our host,with a jolly crowd of solid French- 
 men, distinguished in the arts simple men, 
 all of them, good comrades and honesjt sports- 
 men. And what a rousing welcome they gave 
 us. Then back to Paris and to work, with just 
 enough left of that lottery ticket to pay a fiacre 
 from the station at the Quai D'Orsay to the 
 studio. Both Vautrin's and mine were clean 
 everything was in order even the floor had 
 been polished and the canvases stacked neatly 
 and the curtains really dusted; and both our 
 small kitchens scrubbed. Marie had seen to 
 that, bless her heart! 
 
 January slipped by with nothing to disturb 
 one from the even working life. The unex- 
 pected raps at my studio door, a serious attempt 
 to paint better, and those long talks after din- 
 ner at the little cafe up the Rue des Deux Amis, 
 where Vautrin and I go nightly to dine on two 
 francs fifty centimes - vin compris. It is like 
 one big family there, with Bauvillon and Susette. 
 Laurent and La Petite Lyonnaise Legas,
 
 "THE REFUGEES" 387 
 
 Yvonne, and Marie, who dines with us when she 
 is not dining with her aunt whom she is devoted 
 to and who lives in the Rue Norvin. 
 
 At this family table every one has something 
 to say after he or she has swallowed their soup, 
 and not a story will you hear, but in their stead, 
 discussions, arguments, opinions, always opin- 
 ions, seldom about much else save the price of 
 necessities and affairs of the heart. Other im- 
 portant subjects, too, relative to the fact that 
 Amelie, frankly, does not know how to wear her 
 clothes. That the fur coat that Marguerite 
 acquired through an affair of the heart, a fur 
 coat that was a sensation on the Butte de Mont- 
 martre at the time it was acquired, and which 
 cost the fabulous sum of four hundred and 
 eighty francs, subsequently became the prop- 
 perty of the Government's pawnshop for eighty 
 francs. That it is indeed true that Francine's 
 brown eyes are beautiful, but that she is as 
 stupid as her feet, and that Blanche Veron has 
 disappeared from the family table and is now 
 "dans ces meubles" (in her furniture), from which 
 you may gather that she is now called "Mad-
 
 388 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 ame," and has her gloves cleaned and will no 
 longer be seen at the family table in the little 
 cafe in the Rue des Deux Amis. And when 
 Helene says she remembers Blanche when she 
 was the daughter of a ragpicker who lived out 
 in St. Ouen ! Tiens! and not once will 
 you hear a really unkind word save so rarely 
 that you exclaim Ah! in surprise. Only the 
 other day the bad character of one was proven. 
 She wrote a threatening letter to a painter! It 
 is almost unbelievable. The crowd roared: 
 she must be crazy. "I knew her only slightly," 
 said Amelie, "but in my opinion she is a bad 
 girl." 
 
 "She has no heart," interrupted Lisette. 
 
 ;< You may well believe," echoed Helene with 
 quiet conviction. 
 
 "It was not very discreet in her," piped 
 Rosalie from the shadow of her lamp-shade hat. 
 
 Only when one is really hungry one asks - 
 oh, for so little a franc, a franc seventy, forty 
 sous, and so discreetly, with such gentle honesty, 
 that it grips one's heart and you begin to realize 
 the sincerity of these little sparrows of Mont-
 
 "THE REFUGEES" 389 
 
 marcre, whose courage is amazing under a sys- 
 tem of daily economy such as the American 
 woman has no idea of, and under such privations 
 and disappointments that you marvel that the 
 smile of camaraderie still bravely remains. 
 
 In what lies this subtle charm of Paris? This 
 quiet old pleasure ground, in which the more you 
 live within its fortifications the more you see 
 that Paris is a domain of small villages, called 
 "Quartiers," whose varied types of inhabitants 
 understand life to a finesse. About life you can 
 tell them nothing; about love and the pursuit 
 of romance, naught. They are experts in 
 economy and are content with what they have. 
 Camaraderie and la vie Boheme does not exist 
 elsewhere with quite the same freedom and 
 understanding, and it is just this understanding 
 which makes the charm. As I have said before, 
 you can explain nothing to a Parisian about his 
 Paris. 
 
 Paris gay! Paris in a whirl? Paris, my 
 friend, is never in a whirl. They take life 
 slowly, philosophically, economically; they 
 understand to a sou what can be had in life.
 
 390 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 If you would have an opinion of the rich, ask 
 the poor. Ask any Parisian or Parisienne about 
 anything Parisian love, social life, intrigue, 
 politics, the latest scandal concerning madame 
 and monsieur, their infants, their cats, their 
 dogs, their streets, their homes, their ambitions, 
 or a discription of any type from a duchess to a 
 brat in the street they will tell you clearly, con- 
 cisely, with the keen observance of one who 
 knows, as well as a detective knows a criminal, 
 or a priest a parishioner, or an apple woman an 
 apple nothing is new to the Parisian and no 
 one bothers their heads about other people's 
 affairs. Ask the man who sweeps the street, 
 ask the depute, or the beggar; ask the cocotte, 
 the financier, the gamin, the aged widow or 
 Mimi, who is fading her nervous youth in the 
 cafes and bars of Montmartre. Ask the model, 
 the politician, the ragpicker, or the duke. Bah! 
 do you suppose there is any mystery about any 
 one, anywhere in Paris, to them? You will be 
 surprised how they hit the nail on the head. 
 How with a shrug and a few words, they tell 
 you just the type he or she is, and how they live,
 
 "THE REFUGEES" 391 
 
 and how much they spend, and what they eat, 
 and drink, the amount of their income, and the 
 prospects of marriage of their daughters. Why, 
 these are things even Madame Dupuy, my con- 
 cierge in the Rue des Deux Amis, knows, and 
 Madame Dupuy rarely leaves her loge. 
 
 Only when you have spent a score of years 
 among all classes of Parisians will you appre- 
 ciate the French heart; their honesty, their in- 
 born politeness and kindness. It is not at all 
 surprising are you not one of them? And if 
 you are not, there are few races whose patience 
 in explaining can match the Parisian's. No- 
 where exists such well greased democracy on the 
 street. The Parisian has no use for the snob 
 speak the truth to them they will go to 
 infinite pains to help you. Discretion with them 
 is a fine art. That is why love is a prime factor 
 in their civilization, since without discretion 
 Tamour cannot live. Moreover, the whole 
 Parisian mind is bent on living to the utmost 
 within their means. 
 
 In these score of years I mention I can truth- 
 fully say I have never been robbed, not even
 
 392 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 at the outset, when I could not speak their lan- 
 guage, and they were obliged to take much pains 
 to explain. All they asked in exchange was 
 politeness, a raised hat, and those three magic 
 words, Monsieur, Madame, or Mademoiselle, 
 will open the heart of any Parisian, whether it 
 be a demi-mondaine or a crusty old Croesus 
 whose personal fortune has made him conspicu- 
 ous. 
 
 Let me drop the curtain upon this well under- 
 stood Parisian life and its Bohemia, for is it 
 not the unexpected which always happens? 
 Are we not, I say, often wrenched from Paradise 
 and driven out across winter seas to the seat of 
 war? 
 
 The beginning of my second exile this year 
 came in the form of an imperative cable, and 
 there was nothing left for me to do but pack my 
 trunk and sail. A final handshake in the cafe 
 in the Rue des Deux Amis; another to Madame 
 Dupuy, a word to the cocher and then the cheer- 
 less Gare du Nord, the waiting train and those 
 brave little words of Marie: 
 
 "You must not be sad. It is better that you
 
 "THE REFUGEES" 393 
 
 go, it is your duty. Eh, bien! be happy, accom- 
 plish your work and come back soon. 
 Tu sais que je t'aime alors!" And thus the 
 train slipped away from those faithful black 
 eyes, for I stood leaning out of the window to 
 gaze into them as long as I could, until all that 
 remained of her brave self was the fluttering 
 speck of a handkerchief. Ah, mon Dieu! It is 
 not very gay, the life at times. Enfin! 
 Boulogne, the plunge and roll of the big ship, 
 the heave and the creaking woodwork for days. 
 Enfin! the banks of Newfoundland, Sandy Hook, 
 the grim, welcoming lady with the torch and 
 the draughty dock at Hoboken. Step lively, gents 
 and ladies, if you would follow me to the end of 
 the adventure. 
 
 "Here, Jack, this man wants his trunk up- 
 town." 
 
 "Thank you," I said. 
 
 "Fifty cents," he barked, as if I had stepped 
 on his toe. 
 
 An hour later I had entered the Bohemia of 
 New York. Yes, the studio would do. It was 
 a small box with a skylight on a fifth floor, situ-
 
 394 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 ated between the roar of the Elevated and a 
 spacious park with sparrows, and sparrow cops, 
 and a mammoth icicle of a tower whose clock 
 convinced you hourly that time was money. 
 
 Now the house itself had once been a private 
 dwelling and had undergone a real estate opera- 
 tion. It was as hot as a laundry on the first 
 floor, where they kept the gas burning fanned by 
 the steam heat, and as cold as a refrigerator by 
 the time you reached the top. There was, 
 moreover a coloured janitor Sam and when 
 the elevator he ran reached the top floor, 
 its door generally fell out against my own. It 
 was a cheap elevator and would have made a 
 better success as a dumbwaiter. And every- 
 where, down the narrow corridors and through 
 the thin walls, echoed the brisk tap! tap! tap of 
 the typewriter and the rattle of light artillery 
 in the steam radiators. One of these gilded 
 disturbers of the peace stood in the corner of 
 the box I had rented with the skylight. This 
 small, square room, empty as a glass, save for a 
 stationery wash basin which kept the radiator 
 company, was separated from its connecting
 
 "THE KEFUGEES" 395 
 
 mate by a thin door back of which a gentleman 
 from Upper Silesia dyed ostrich plumes and sold 
 hair dye by the bottle. His typewriter was 
 young and lived with her folks. 
 
 Thus you may readily understand the intense 
 artistic atmosphere that permeated the house 
 from the first floor tailor to the second floor 
 blond manicure, whose lair contained the flags 
 of all universities and who left her door ajar, to 
 the Blue Diamond Embalming Corporation at 
 the end of her hall, and so on up past the glass- 
 panelled door of the sheet music man, the theat- 
 rical agency and the room of the two old maids 
 who painted teacups. Up, up, past the re- 
 spective boxes of the comic illustrator, a banjo 
 professor, a painter, and a slow, heavy-treaded 
 man with a dominating voice and a gold mine to 
 sell. He too had a typewriter, which he worked 
 himself, and a box of cheap cigars to hand 
 around to those whom he interested in the safest 
 gold stock this side of the Rockies. 
 
 As early as nine, various individuals rapped 
 at my ribbed-glass door stray vagabonds 
 with subscription editions, old women with
 
 396 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 wandering minds and vague inquiries, and the 
 subscription edition well hidden under their 
 preliminary talk and a bedraggled cape, and as 
 it was supposed to be a real studio building 
 there was, of course, the model. 
 
 Ah! Sacristi! the model! The models were 
 privileged and went bumping up in the rattle- 
 trap of an elevator under Sam's smile and gui- 
 dance. 
 
 " Yas, ma'am step right in fifth flo'. Lem- 
 me see. You is inquirin' fo' de gemman artist? 
 Yas, dat's right, fifth flo'." But even her rap 
 was different from the gentle tap of a good com- 
 rade at my studio door in the Rue des Deux 
 Amis. It was sharp and insistent, as if she had 
 found at last the man she had been hunting for 
 with a gun, and when I opened my door to this 
 chorus girl fresh from a burlesque company 
 stranded on the road, and she eyed me shrewdly 
 beneath her blond wig and asked in her rasping 
 voice. "Do youse want a model?" I was 
 again convinced of the absence of charm in my 
 new found Bohemia. 
 
 Ah, yes! They were of varied types, these
 
 "THE REFUGEES" 397 
 
 "models" - tall and thin, short and fat, blonde, 
 brunette and peroxide all models, they told 
 me, and much of their strenuous lives they told 
 me too, and they had all posed for celebrities in 
 art whose names and addresses most of them had 
 gleaned from the Sunday editions; and they con- 
 fessed to being a model with a naughty twinkle 
 in their hard, alert eyes, much as if they would 
 have confided to me: 
 
 "I'm the niece of Satan, and if my uncle knew 
 I was posen' well!" 
 
 "Sit down," I said to the chorus girl who had 
 rapped and entered, "and have a cigarette." 
 
 "Gee, it's cold here!" she began. "Say, 
 listen - 
 
 "I'll turn on the steam," I suggested. 
 
 "Say, you're all right, I like you," she an- 
 swered bluntly. 
 
 "Ah! what luck! How was the show, I 
 mean?" 
 
 "A dead one that's right. Say, listen. I 
 was with Big May's Dainties as fur as Schenec- 
 tady. Say, listen. What kind er art work do 
 you do, dearie? I had a swell feller once and
 
 398 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 he done some lovely crayon portraits you 
 know, them crayon portraits? Was you ever 
 to MacQuire's? Take me out, kid, some night, 
 will you? And, say, let's go to MacQuire's. 
 He's got a grand table d'hote. Take me down 
 to Coney Isle," she quavered into song "/ 
 - want a girl just like the girl that mar- 
 ried dear old Dad." 
 
 There were some serious models, I confess, 
 models with a definite purpose in life, but I re- 
 frain from entering into a detailed description 
 of these ladies, whose ambition in art seemed to 
 be to find a gold miner or a lonely widower with 
 more money than he could spend. There were 
 some even more serious than these. It was 
 amazing to me how serious they were. These 
 vestals of beauty and line lived, I was told, in a 
 sort of seminary and were only allowed out alone 
 in Bohemia during the day to pose under the 
 rules. 
 
 And so the days of my exile slipped by, one by 
 one, and my neighbour, the comic artist, and I 
 grew to be good friends, though he seldom smiled, 
 and I can hear his solemn tread now coming
 
 "THE REFUGEES" 399 
 
 down the corridor to borrow a match, and when 
 we were out of matches we kept the hall gas 
 jet burning. Had he not lived, this bon garcon 
 in Paris for many years, in Montmartre, in fact, 
 and knew my own Rue des Deux Amis as well 
 as he did his pocket? 
 
 Poor Remson! He was no longer a Mont- 
 martrois but a suburbanite with a commuter's 
 ticket and a fixed salary to supply humour by 
 the year. 
 
 When it grew dark, Remson and I would lock 
 up and go down to the basement cafe next door, 
 upon whose second floor they served as early as 
 three-thirty, for tea Italian cocktails to the 
 accompaniment of a thin fiddle and a weak harp 
 - but to the cafe came the painters. Tall were 
 the schooners topped with foam, and caustic 
 was the talk on art, for most of them had lived 
 in Paris and were now, like Remson, in the 
 strenuous life. Indeed the only one who seemed 
 to be able to express a calm opinion was Nick, 
 the bartender, who had once been a barker for a 
 living picture show and knew art when he saw 
 it.
 
 400 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 I know not why Chance cast me into this 
 saw-dusted dungeon daily at five, save that it 
 was next door, and warm. The artistic atmos- 
 phere within was as hard as an elevated rail- 
 road. The step from it led to the street, a 
 ravine draughty as a canon where an ill wind 
 always blew, and somehow the hands on the 
 clock on the icicle tower as you left, always beck- 
 oned toward Broadway. 
 
 Poor Remson! He had known Paradise, 
 this good comrade, and when, as we often did, 
 sit smoking in the winter twilight in his studio 
 or mine, he told me much of his old days; of his 
 two years at Julian's, of the balls, of his fa- 
 vourite cafe in the Rue Fontaine, of his comfort- 
 able old studio in the Rue Navarin, of friends 
 and memories, and he spoke of Her with a cer- 
 tain reverence; of the days and weeks when he 
 lay ill and she nursed him, of the day he bought 
 Her the parasol, of the lazy summer days when 
 they used to take the swift little steamer for a 
 few sous to St. Cloud, where they lay all day in 
 the forest and ate the good lunch they had 
 brought with them. How he had taught Her to
 
 "THE REFUGEES" 401 
 
 draw and paint a little; how she had encouraged 
 him in his work; of her pride in his first suc- 
 cesses, of her content, of her economy. Then 
 he, too, was summoned into exile. 
 
 "But you'll go back, old boy, some day," I 
 said. 
 
 "Allans! un pen de courage, mon vieux." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders and there crept 
 into his calm melancholy features a resigned 
 smile. 
 
 "I must stick to the job," said he. "I'm 
 under contract. It's no joke," he added grimly, 
 then he paused and gazed absently in the dusk 
 at the glowing end of his fat Turkish cigarette. 
 "I wonder what has become of Annette?" he 
 said simply. 
 
 "Young when you left?" I asked. 
 
 " Nineteen a little over. I remember her 
 birthday. It was the last day we went to St. 
 Cloud." He looked up suddenly. "A week 
 later I sailed." 
 
 "Model?" 
 
 "No. Annette worked on corsets in the Rue 
 Fontaine for a woman. Lord ! I can't re-
 
 402 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 member her name. Hold on ! Dupon - - Du- 
 bois- -" 
 
 "Stop!" I interrupted. "Dutois Jeanne 
 Dutois?" 
 
 "By George, that's it!" he exclaimed. 
 "Jeanne Dutois." 
 
 "Tall blonde little shop next to the 
 butcher's?" I ventured. 
 
 "Well, say why, yes little shop next to 
 the butcher's, between the butcher's and the 
 grocery. How the devil 
 
 "I pass it daily," I said. "I remember it 
 because I often glance within, simply because 
 there is a trim little person within who is 
 worth glancing at. She's generally sewing next 
 to the window. I've never seen such a pair of 
 brown eyes or such a pure little profile, half 
 Italian. 
 
 "Half Italian!" exclaimed Remson, "and- 
 and brown eyesf" 
 
 He shot forward in his chair and gripped me 
 by the shoulders. 
 
 "Did you notice her hands?" he asked ex- 
 citedly.
 
 "THE REFUGEES" 403 
 
 "Yes, I did. They were the first things that 
 attracted my attention. 
 
 "Small?" 
 
 "Like a child's, and beautifully modelled." 
 
 Remson sprang to his feet, his hands thrust 
 in his pockets. For some moments he paced 
 the floor in silence, then he turned and faced me. 
 "I've got enough of this!" Remson cried. 
 "Enough, do you hear? By God! I've got 
 enough. I'm going back." 
 
 "There is not a shadow of a doubt you think 
 that it was Annette I saw?" 
 
 His whole face became radiant. 
 
 "And she's still there she's still there," he 
 mused; "and I thought well, you know I 
 thought I should never see her again and 
 she's still there. Bless her little heart. See 
 here," he declared, "I'm going back. You've 
 got to come too; we'll go back together." He 
 stood there in the dusk trembling with excite- 
 ment. "I've got enough now in the bank," he 
 continued, "and I'll make the rest when it's 
 gone, just as we always did. Say you'll go. 
 Haven't you got enough of this?"
 
 404 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 " Done ! " said I. " But your contract ? " 
 
 "I'll fix that," he broke out savagely, "any- 
 way they like, but I'll fix it. Don't you worry 
 - they'll forget me and anything I ever did for 
 'em in forty -eight hours." 
 
 He sprang for the door, opened it, crossed the 
 narrow corridor and kept his thumb on the eleva- 
 tor button until I heard Sam bawling up the shaft : 
 
 "Comin', sah, comin'!" 
 
 "Go down," commanded Remson to that 
 grinning servitor, "and tell Nick to send up a 
 bottle of Extra Dry." 
 
 "Yas, sah." 
 
 "And Sam- -" 
 
 "Yas, sah!" 
 
 : 'You can tell the agent of this superb prop- 
 erty to hang out a neatly painted sign to- 
 morrow 'Two studios to let, steam heat, 
 running water, and electric light." 
 
 Nine days later the Noordam dropped anchor 
 in the golden mist off Boulogne and the small 
 iron door in her side opened to receive the gang- 
 plank of her tender.
 
 "THE REFUGEES" 405 
 
 There were two telegrams handed to Remson 
 and myself. Remson's came straight from the 
 heart of a little Parisienne who sits as she sews 
 close to the window of a little shop in the Rue 
 Fontaine. Its contents are not for you; it was 
 strictly for Remson. 
 
 Mine? Oh, mine you shall read. It ran as 
 follows, this blue strip: 
 
 "Welcome! Dinner waiting at Vautrin's!" 
 Ah, non! why not give it in its original : 
 
 "Amities! Poingez de main mille baisers 
 - diner ce soir chez Vautrin" and was signed. 
 
 "MARIE." 
 
 Old friends, old loves, old memories, in the 
 land we live in called Bohemia, where the heart
 
 406 THE STREET OF THE TWO FRIENDS 
 
 never grows old. The nest beneath the roofs 
 
 - work, and the trim step upon the stairs - 
 silence and the friendly knock. 
 
 "Bonjour!" 
 
 "Tienst c'esttoi?" 
 
 And so I settle down to my old life once more, 
 in the Street of the Two Friends. 
 
 THE END.
 
 THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS 
 GAEDEN CITY, N. Y.

 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 000 828 401 o