II
"An' you are pleas wiz Paris, Monsieur' Astang?" demanded Madame Marottethe next morning as Hastings came into the breakfast-room of the pension,rosy from his plunge in the limited bath above.
"I am sure I shall like it," he replied, wondering at his own depressionof spirits.
The maid brought him coffee and rolls. He returned the vacant glance ofthe big-headed young man and acknowledged diffidently the salutes of thesnuffy old gentlemen. He did not try to finish his coffee, and satcrumbling a roll, unconscious of the sympathetic glances of MadameMarotte, who had tact enough not to bother him.
Presently a maid entered with a tray on which were balanced two bowls ofchocolate, and the snuffy old gentlemen leered at her ankles. The maiddeposited the chocolate at a table near the window and smiled at Hastings.Then a thin young lady, followed by her counterpart in all except years,marched into the room and took the table near the window. They wereevidently American, but Hastings, if he expected any sign of recognition,was disappointed. To be ignored by compatriots intensified his depression.He fumbled with his knife and looked at his plate.
The thin young lady was talkative enough. She was quite aware of Hastings'presence, ready to be flattered if he looked at her, but on the other handshe felt her superiority, for she had been three weeks in Paris and he, itwas easy to see, had not yet unpacked his steamer-trunk.
Her conversation was complacent. She argued with her mother upon therelative merits of the Louvre and the Bon Marche, but her mother's part ofthe discussion was mostly confined to the observation, "Why, Susie!"
The snuffy old gentlemen had left the room in a body, outwardly polite andinwardly raging. They could not endure the Americans, who filled the roomwith their chatter.
The big-headed young man looked after them with a knowing cough,murmuring, "Gay old birds!"
"They look like bad old men, Mr. Bladen," said the girl.
To this Mr. Bladen smiled and said, "They've had their day," in a tonewhich implied that he was now having his.
"And that's why they all have baggy eyes," cried the girl. "I think it's ashame for young gentlemen--"
"Why, Susie!" said the mother, and the conversation lagged.
After a while Mr. Bladen threw down the _Petit Journal_, which he dailystudied at the expense of the house, and turning to Hastings, started tomake himself agreeable. He began by saying, "I see you are American."
To this brilliant and original opening, Hastings, deadly homesick, repliedgratefully, and the conversation was judiciously nourished by observationsfrom Miss Susie Byng distinctly addressed to Mr. Bladen. In the course ofevents Miss Susie, forgetting to address herself exclusively to Mr.Bladen, and Hastings replying to her general question, the _ententecordiale_ was established, and Susie and her mother extended aprotectorate over what was clearly neutral territory.
"Mr. Hastings, you must not desert the pension every evening as Mr. Bladendoes. Paris is an awful place for young gentlemen, and Mr. Bladen is ahorrid cynic."
Mr. Bladen looked gratified.
Hastings answered, "I shall be at the studio all day, and I imagine Ishall be glad enough to come back at night."
Mr. Bladen, who, at a salary of fifteen dollars a week, acted as agent forthe Pewly Manufacturing Company of Troy, N.Y., smiled a sceptical smileand withdrew to keep an appointment with a customer on the BoulevardMagenta.
Hastings walked into the garden with Mrs. Byng and Susie, and, at theirinvitation, sat down in the shade before the iron gate.
The chestnut trees still bore their fragrant spikes of pink and white, andthe bees hummed among the roses, trellised on the white-walled house.
A faint freshness was in the air. The watering carts moved up and down thestreet, and a clear stream bubbled over the spotless gutters of the rue dela Grande Chaumiere. The sparrows were merry along the curb-stones, takingbath after bath in the water and ruffling their feathers with delight. Ina walled garden across the street a pair of blackbirds whistled among thealmond trees.
Hastings swallowed the lump in his throat, for the song of the birds andthe ripple of water in a Paris gutter brought back to him the sunnymeadows of Millbrook.
"That's a blackbird," observed Miss Byng; "see him there on the bush withpink blossoms. He's all black except his bill, and that looks as if it hadbeen dipped in an omelet, as some Frenchman says--"
"Why, Susie!" said Mrs. Byng.
"That garden belongs to a studio inhabited by two Americans," continuedthe girl serenely, "and I often see them pass. They seem to need a greatmany models, mostly young and feminine--"
"Why, Susie!"
"Perhaps they prefer painting that kind, but I don't see why they shouldinvite five, with three more young gentlemen, and all get into two cabsand drive away singing. This street," she continued, "is dull. There isnothing to see except the garden and a glimpse of the BoulevardMontparnasse through the rue de la Grande Chaumiere. No one ever passesexcept a policeman. There is a convent on the corner."
"I thought it was a Jesuit College," began Hastings, but was at onceoverwhelmed with a Baedecker description of the place, ending with, "Onone side stand the palatial hotels of Jean Paul Laurens and GuillaumeBouguereau, and opposite, in the little Passage Stanislas, Carolus Duranpaints the masterpieces which charm the world."
The blackbird burst into a ripple of golden throaty notes, and from somedistant green spot in the city an unknown wild-bird answered with a frenzyof liquid trills until the sparrows paused in their ablutions to look upwith restless chirps.
Then a butterfly came and sat on a cluster of heliotrope and waved hiscrimson-banded wings in the hot sunshine. Hastings knew him for a friend,and before his eyes there came a vision of tall mulleins and scentedmilkweed alive with painted wings, a vision of a white house andwoodbine-covered piazza,--a glimpse of a man reading and a woman leaningover the pansy bed,--and his heart was full. He was startled a momentlater by Miss Byng.
"I believe you are homesick!" Hastings blushed. Miss Byng looked at himwith a sympathetic sigh and continued: "Whenever I felt homesick at firstI used to go with mamma and walk in the Luxembourg Gardens. I don't knowwhy it is, but those old-fashioned gardens seemed to bring me nearer homethan anything in this artificial city."
"But they are full of marble statues," said Mrs. Byng mildly; "I don't seethe resemblance myself."
"Where is the Luxembourg?" inquired Hastings after a silence.
"Come with me to the gate," said Miss Byng. He rose and followed her, andshe pointed out the rue Vavin at the foot of the street.
"You pass by the convent to the right," she smiled; and Hastings went.
The King in Yellow Page 28