In the Quarter by Robert W. Chambers

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"I wanted to marry her. She wouldn't marry me. I was not rich, but
what she said was: `One hates one's husband.' When I say vulgar, I
don't mean she had vulgar manners. She was as pretty and trim and
clever -- as the rest of them. An artist, if he sees all that really
exists, sometimes also sees things which have no existence at all. Of
these were the qualities with which I invested her -- the moral and
mental correspondencies to her blonde skin and supple figure. She
justified my perspicacity one day by leaving me for a loathsome little
Jew. The last time I heard of her she had been turned out of a
gambling hell in his company. His name is Emanuel Pick. Is not this a
shabby romance? Is it not enough to make a self-respecting man hang
his head -- to know that he has once found pleasure in the society of
the mistress of Mr Emanuel Pick?"

A long silence followed, during which the two men smoked, looking in
opposite directions. At last Braith reached over and shook the ashes
out of his pipe. Rex lighted a fresh cigarette at the same time, and
their eyes met with a look of mutual confidence and goodwill. Braith
spoke again, firmly this time.

"God keep you out of the mire, Rex; you're all right thus far. But it
is my solemn belief that an affair of that kind would be your ruin as
an artist; as a man."

"The Quarter doesn't regard things in that light," said Gethryn,
trying hard to laugh off the weight that oppressed him.

"The Quarter is a law unto itself. Be a law unto yourself, Rex --
Good night, old chap."

"Good night, Braith," said Gethryn slowly.

Five

Thirion's at six pm. Madame Thirion, neat and demure, sat behind her
desk; her husband, in white linen apron and cap, scuttled back and
forth shouting, "Bon! Bon!" to the orders that came down the call
trumpet. The waiters flew crazily about, and cries went up for
"Pierre" and "Jean" and "green peas and fillet."

The noise, smoke, laughter, shouting, rattle of dishes, the
penetrating odor of burnt paper and French tobacco, all proclaimed the
place a Latin Quarter restaurant. The English and Americans ate like
civilized beings and howled like barbarians. The Germans, when they
had napkins, tucked them under their chins. The Frenchmen -- well!
they often agreed with the hated Teuton in at least one thing; that
knives were made to eat with. But which of the four nationalities
exceeded the others in turbulence and bad language would be hard to
say.

Clifford was eating his chop and staring at the blonde adjunct of a
dapper little Frenchman.

"Clifford," said Carleton, "stop that."

"I'm mesmerizing her," said Clifford. "It's a case of hypnotism."

The girl, who had been staring back at Clifford, suddenly shrugged her
shoulders, and turning to her companion, said aloud:

"How like a monkey, that foreigner!"

Clifford withdrew his eyes in a hurry, amid a roar of laughter from
the others. He was glad when Braith's entrance caused a diversion.

"Hullo, Don Juan! I see you, Lothario! Drinking again?"

Braith took it all as a matter of course, but this time failed to
return as good as they gave. He took a seat beside Gethryn and said in
a low tone:

"I've just come from your house. There's a letter from the Salon in
your box."

Gethryn set down his wine untasted and reached for his hat.

"What's the matter, Reggy? Has Lisette gone back on you?" asked
Clifford, tenderly.

"It's the Salon," said Braith, as Gethryn went out with a hasty
"Good night."

"Poor Reggy, how hard he takes it!" sighed Clifford.

Gethryn hurried along the familiar streets with his heart in his boots
sometimes, and sometimes in his mouth.

In his box was a letter and a note addressed in pencil. He snatched
them both, and lighting a candle, mounted the stairs, unlocked his
door and sank breathless upon the lounge. He tore open the first
envelope. A bit of paper fell out. It was from Braith and said:

I congratulate you either way. If you are successful I shall be as
glad as you are. If not, I still congratulate you on the manly
courage which you are going to show in turning defeat into victory.

"He's one in a million," thought Gethryn, and opened the other
letter. It contained a folded paper and a card. The card was white.
The paper read:

You are admitted to the Salon with a No. 1. My compliments. J.
Lefebvre

He ought to have been pleased, but instead he felt weak and giddy, and
the pleasure was more like pain. He leaned against the table quite
unstrung, his mind in a whirl. He got up and went to the window. Then
he shook himself and walked over to his cabinet. Taking out a bunch of
keys, he selected one and opened what Clifford called his "cellar."

Clifford knew and deplored the fact that Gethryn's "cellar" was no
longer open to the public. Since the day when Rex returned from
Julien's, tired and cross, to find a row of empty bottles on the floor
and Clifford on the sofa conversing incoherently with himself, and had
his questions interrupted by a maudlin squawk from the parrot -- also
tipsy -- since that day Gethryn had carried the key. He now produced a
wine glass and a dusty bottle, filled the one from the other and
emptied it three times in rapid succession. Then he took the glass to
the washbasin and rinsed it with great slowness and precision. Then he
sat down and tried to think. Number One meant a mention, perhaps a
medal. He would telegraph his aunt tomorrow. Suddenly he felt a strong
desire to tell someone. He would go and see Braith. No, Braith was in
the evening class at the Beaux Arts; so were the others, excepting
Clifford and Elliott, and they were at a ball across the river.

Whom could he see? He thought of the garcon. He would ring him up and
give him a glass of wine. Alcide was a good fellow and stole very
little. The clock struck eleven.

"No, he's gone to bed. Alcide, you've missed a glass of wine and a
cigar, you early bird."

His head was clear enough now. He realized his good fortune. He had
never been so happy in his life. He called the pups and romped with
them until an unlucky misstep sent Mrs Gummidge, with a shriek, to the
top of the wardrobe, whence she glared at Gethryn and spit at the
delighted raven.

The young man sat down fairly out of breath, but the pups still kept
making charges at his legs and tumbled over themselves with barking.
He gathered them up and carried them into his bedroom to their
sleeping box. As he stooped to drop them in, there came a knock at his
studio door. But when he hastened to open it, glad of company, there
was no one there. Surprised, he turned back and saw on the floor
before him a note. Picking it up, he took it to the lamp and read it.
It was signed, "Yvonne Descartes."

When he had read it twice, he sat down to think. Presently he took
something out of his waistcoat pocket and held it close to the light.
It was a gold brooch in the shape of a fleur-de-lis. On the back was
engraved "Yvonne." He held it in his hand a while, and then, getting
up, went slowly towards the door. He opened the door, closed it behind
him and moved toward the stairs. Suddenly he started.

"Braith! Is that you?"

There was no answer. His voice sounded hollow in the tiled hallway.

"Braith," he said again. "I thought I heard him say `Rex."' But he
kept on to the next floor and stopped before the door of the room
which was directly under his own. He paused, hesitated, looking up at
a ray of light which came out from a crack in the transom.

"It's too late," he muttered, and turned away irresolutely.

A clear voice called from within, "Entrez donc, Monsieur."

He opened the door and went in.

On a piano stood a shaded lamp, which threw a soft yellow light over
everything. The first glance gave him a hasty impression of a white
lace-covered bed and a dainty toilet table on which stood a pair of
tall silver candlesticks; and then, as the soft voice spoke again,
"Will Monsieur be seated?" he turned and confronted the girl whom he
had helped in the Place de la Concorde. She lay in a cloud of fleecy
wrappings on a lounge that was covered with a great white bearskin.
Her blue eyes met Gethryn's, and he smiled faintly. She spoke again:

"Will Monsieur sit a little nearer? It is difficult to speak loudly
-- I have so little strength."

Gethryn walked over to the sofa and half unconsciously sank down on
the rug which fell on the floor by the invalid's side. He spoke as he
would to a sick child.

"I am so very glad you are better. I inquired of the concierge and
she told me."

A slight color crept into the girl's face. "You are so good. Ah! what
should I have done -- what can I say?" She stopped; there were tears
in her eyes.

"Please say nothing -- please forget it."

"Forget!" Presently she continued, almost in a whisper, "I had so
much to say to you, and now you are really here, I can think of
nothing, only that you saved me."

"Mademoiselle -- I beg!"

She lay silent a moment more; then she raised herself from the sofa
and held out her hand. His hand and eyes met hers.

"I thank you," she said, "I can never forget." Then she sank back
among the white fluff of lace and fur. "I only learned this
morning," she went on, after a minute, " who sat beside me all that
night and bathed my arm, and gave me cooling drinks."

Gethryn colored. "There was no one else to take care of you. I sent
for my friend, Doctor Ducrot, but he was out of town. Then Dr Bouvier
promised to come, and didn't. The concierge was ill herself -- I could
not leave you alone. You know, you were a little out of your head with
fright and fever. I really couldn't leave you to get on by yourself."

"No," cried the girl, excitedly, "you could not leave me after
carrying me out of that terrible crowd; yourself hurt, exhausted, you
sat by my side all night long."

Gethryn laid his hand on her. "Helene," he said, half jesting, "I
did what anyone else would have done under the circumstances -- and
forgotten."

She looked at him shyly. "Don't forget," she said.

"I couldn't forget your face," he rashly answered, moved by the
emotion she showed.

She brightened.

"Did you know me when you first saw me in the crowd?" She expected
him to say "Yes."

"No," he replied, "I only saw you were a woman and in danger of
your life."

The brightness fell from her face. "Then it was all the same to you
who I was."

He nodded. "Yes -- any woman, you know."

"Old and dirty and ugly?"

His hand slipped from hers. "And a woman -- yes."

She shrugged her pretty shoulders. "Then I wish it had been someone
else."

"So do I, for your sake," he answered gravely.

She glanced at him, half frightened; then leaning swiftly toward him:

"Forgive me; I would not change places with a queen."

"Nor I with any man!" he cried gayly. "Am I not Paris?"

"And I?"

"You are Helene," he said, laughing. "Let me see -- Paris and
Helene would not have changed -- "

She interrupted him impatiently. "Words! you do not mean them. Nor do
I, either," she added, hastily. After that neither spoke for a while.
Gethryn, half stretched on the big rug, idly twisting bits of it into
curls, felt very comfortable, without troubling to ask himself what
would come next. Presently she glanced up.

"Paris, do you want to smoke?"

"You don't think I would smoke in this dainty nest?"

"Please do, I like it. We are -- we will be such very good friends.
There are matches on that table in the silver box."

He shook his head, laughing. "You are too indulgent."

"I am never indulgent, excepting to myself. But I have caprices and I
generally die when they are not indulged. This is one. Please smoke."

"Oh, in that case, with Helene's permission."

She laughed delightedly as he blew the rings of fragrant smoke far up
to the ceiling. There was another long pause, then she began again:

"Paris, you speak French very well."

He came from where he had been standing by the table and seated
himself once more among the furs at her feet.

"Do I, Helene?"

"Yes -- but you sing it divinely."

Gethryn began to hum the air of the dream song, smiling, "Yes 'tis a
dream -- a dream of love," he repeated, but stopped.

Yvonne's temples and throat were crimson.

"Please open the window," she cried, "it's so warm here."

"Helene, I think you are blushing," said he, mischievously.

She turned her head away from him. He rose and opened the window,
leaning out a moment; his heart was beating violently. Presently he
returned.

"It's one o'clock."

No answer.

"Helene, it's one o'clock in the morning."

"Are you tired?" she murmured.

"No."

"Nor I -- don't go."

"But it's one o'clock."

"Don't go yet."

He sank down irresolutely on the rug again. "I ought to go," he
murmured.

"Are we to remain friends?"

"That is for Helene to say."

"And Helene will leave it to Homer!"

"To whom?" said Gethryn.

"Monsieur Homer," said the girl, faintly.

"But that was a tragedy."

"But they were friends."

"In a way. Yes, in a way."

Gethryn tried to return to a light tone. "They fell in love, I
believe." No answer. "Very well," said Gethryn, still trying to
joke, "I will carry you off in a boat, then."

"To Troy -- when?"

"No, to Meudon, when you are well. Do you like the country?"

"I love it," she said.

"Well, I'll take my easel and my paints along too."

She looked at him seriously. "You are an artist -- I heard that from
the concierge."

"Yes," said Gethryn, "I think I may claim the title tonight."

And then he told her about the Salon. She listened and brightened with
sympathy. Then she grew silent.

"Do you paint landscapes?"

"Figures," said the young man, shortly.

"From models?"

"Of course," he answered, still more drily.

"Draped," she persisted.

"No."

"I hate models!" she cried out, almost fiercely.

"They are not a pleasing set, as a rule," he admitted. "But I know
some decent ones."

She shivered and shook her curly head. "Some are very pretty, I
suppose."

"Some."

"Do you know Sarah Brown?"

"Yes, I know Sarah."

"Men go wild about her."

"I never did."

Yvonne was out of humor. "Oh," she cried, petulantly, "you are very
cold -- you Americans -- like ice."

"Because we don't run after Sarah?"

"Because you are a nation of business, and -- "

"And brains," said Gethryn, drily.

There was an uncomfortable pause. Gethryn looked at the girl. She lay
with her face turned from him.

"Helene!" No answer. "Yvonne -- Mademoiselle!" No answer. "It's
two o'clock."

A slight impatient movement of the head.

"Good night." Gethryn rose. "Good night," he repeated. He waited
for a moment. "Good night, Yvonne," he said, for the third time.

She turned slowly toward him, and as he looked down at her he felt a
tenderness as for a sick child.

"Good night," he said once more, and, bending over her, gently laid
the little gold clasp in her open hand. She looked at it in surprise;
then suddenly she leaned swiftly toward him, rested a brief second
against him, and then sank back again. The golden fleur-de-lis
glittered over his heart.

"You will wear it?" she whispered.

"Yes."

"Then -- good night."

Half unconsciously he stooped and kissed her forehead; then went his
way. And all that night one slept until the morning broke, and one saw
morning break, then fell asleep.

Six

It was the first day of June. In the Luxembourg Gardens a soft breeze
stirred the tender chestnut leaves, and blew sparkling ripples across
the water in the Fountain of Marie de Medicis.

The modest little hothouse flowers had quite recovered from the shock
of recent transplanting and were ambitiously pushing out long spikes
and clusters of crimson, purple and gold, filling the air with spicy
perfume, and drawing an occasional battered butterfly, gaunt and
seedy, from his long winter's sleep, but still remembering the flowery
days of last season's brilliant debut.

Through the fresh young leaves the sunshine fell, dappling the glades
and thickets, bathing the gray walls of the Palais du Senat, and
almost warming into life the queer old statues of long departed
royalty, which for so many years have looked down from the great
terrace to the Palace of the King.

Through every gate the people drifted into the gardens, and the
winding paths were dotted and crowded with brightly-colored,
slowly-moving groups.

Here a half dozen meager, black-robed priests strolled silently amid
the tender verdure; here a noisy crowd of children, gamboling
awkwardly in the wake of a painted rubber ball, made day hideous with
their yells.

Now a slovenly company of dragoons shuffled by, their big shapeless
boots covered with dust, and their whalebone plumes hanging in
straight points to the middle of their backs; now a group of strutting
students and cocottes passed noisily, the girls in spotless spring
plumage, the students vying with each other in the display of blinking
eyeglasses, huge bunchy neckties, and sleek checked trousers.
Policemen, trim little grisettes (for whatever is said to the
contrary, the grisette is still extant in Paris), nurse girls with
turbaned heads and ugly red streamers, wheeling ugly red babies; an
occasional stray zouave or turco in curt Turkish jacket and white
leggings; grave old gentlemen with white mustache and military step;
gay, baggy gentlemen from St Cyr, looking like newly-painted wooden
soldiers; students from the Ecole Polytechnique; students from the
Lycee St Louis in blue and red; students from Julien's and the Beaux
Arts with a plentiful sprinkling of berets and corduroy jackets; and
group after group of jingling artillery officers in scarlet and black,
or hussars and chasseurs in pale turquoise, strolled and idled up and
down the terrace, or watched the toy yachts braving the furies of the
great fountain.

Over by the playgrounds, the Polichinel nuisance drummed and squeaked
to an appreciative audience of tender years. The "Jeu de paume" was
also in full swing, a truly exasperating spectacle for a modern tennis
player.

The old man who feeds the sparrows in the afternoon, and beats his
wife at night, was intent on the former cheerful occupation, and
smiled benevolently upon the little children who watched him, open
mouthed. The numerous waterfowl -- mallard, teal, red-head, and dusky
-- waddled and dived and fought the big mouse-colored pigeons for a
share of the sparrow's crumbs.

A depraved and mongrel pointer, who had tugged at his chain in a wild
endeavor to point the whole heterogeneous mass of feathered creatures
from sparrow to swan, lost his head and howled dismally until dragged
off by the lean-legged student who was attached to the other end of
the chain.

Gethryn, sprawling on a bench in the sunshine, turned up his nose.
Braith grunted scornfully.

A man passed in the crowd, stopped, stared, and then hastily advanced
toward Gethryn.

"You?" said Rex, smiling and shaking hands. "Mr Clifford, this is
Mr Bulfinch; Mr Braith," -- but Mr Bulfinch was already bowing to
Braith and offering his hand, though with a curious diminution of his
first beaming cordiality. Braith's constraint was even more marked. He
had turned quite white. Bulfinch and Gethryn, who had risen to receive
him, remained standing side by side, stranded on the shoals of an
awkward situation. The little Mirror man made a grab at a topic which
he thought would float them off, and laid hold instead on one which
upset them altogether.

"I hope Mrs Braith is well. She met you all right at Vienna?"

Braith bowed stiffly, without answering.

Rex gave him a quick look, and turning on his heel, said carelessly:

"I see you and Mr Braith are old acquaintances, so I won't scruple to
leave you with him for a moment. Bring Mr Bulfinch over to the music
stand, Braith." And smiling, as if he were assisting at a charming
reunion, he led Clifford away. The latter turned, as he departed, an
eye of delighted intelligence upon Braith.

To renew his acquaintance with Mr Bulfinch was the last thing Braith
desired, but since the meeting had been thrust upon him he thanked
Gethryn's tact for removing such a witness of it as Clifford would
have been. He had no intention, however, of talking with the little
Mirror man, and maintained a profound silence, smoking steadily. This
conduct so irritated the other that he determined to force an
explanation of the matter which seemed so distasteful to his
ungracious companion. He certainly thought he had his own reasons for
resenting the sight of Braith upon a high horse, and he resumed the
conversation with all the jaunty ease which the calling of newspaper
correspondent is said to cultivate.

"I hope Mrs Braith found no difficulty in meeting you in Vienna?"

"Madame was not my wife, and we did not meet in Vienna," said Braith
shortly.

Bulfinch began to stare, and to feel a little less at ease.

"She told me -- that is, her courier came to me and -- "

"Her courier? Mr Bulfinch, will you please explain what you are
talking about?" Braith turned square around and looked at him in a
way that caused a still further diminution of his jauntiness and a
proportionate increase of respect.

"Oh -- I'll explain, if I know what you want explained. We were at
Brindisi, were we not?"

"Yes."

"On our way to Cairo?"

"Yes."

"In the same hotel?"

"Yes."

"But I had no acquaintance with madame, and had only exchanged a word
or two with you, when you were suddenly summoned to Paris by a
telegram."

Braith bowed. He remembered well the false dispatch that had drawn him
out of the way.

"Well, and when you left you told her you would be obliged to give up
going to Cairo, and asked her to meet you in Vienna, whither you would
have to go from Paris?"

"Oh, did I?"

"And you recommended a courier to her whom you knew very well, and in
whom you had great confidence."

"Ah! And what was that courier's name?"

"Emanuel Pick. I wasn't fond of Emanuel myself," with a sharp glance
at Braith's eyes, "but I supposed you knew something in his favor, or
you would not have left -- er -- the lady in his charge."

Braith was silent.

"I understood him to be your agent," said the little man,
cautiously.

"He was not."

"Oh!"

A long silence followed, during which Mr Bulfinch sought and found an
explanation of several things. After a while he said musingly:

"I should like to meet Mr Pick again."

"Why should you want to meet him?"

"I wish to wring his nose two hundred times, one for each franc I
lent him."

"How was that?" said Braith, absently.

"It was this way. He came to me and told me what I have repeated to
you, and that you desired madame to go on at once and wait for you in
Vienna, which you expected to reach in a few days after her arrival.
That you had bought tickets -- one first class for madame, two second
class for him and for her maid -- before you left, and had told her
you had placed plenty of money for the other expenses in her dressing
case. But this morning, on looking for the money, none could be found.
Madame was sure it had not been stolen. She thought you must have
meant to put it there, and forgotten afterwards. If she only had a few
francs, just to last as far as Naples! Madame was well known to the
bankers on the Santa Lucia there! etc. Well, I'm not such an ass that
I didn't first see madame and get her to confirm his statement. But
when she did confirm it, with such a charming laugh -- she was very
pretty -- I thought she was a lady and your wife -- "

In the midst of his bitterness, Braith could not help smiling at the
thought of Nina with a maid and a courier. He remembered the tiny
apartment in the Latin Quarter which she had been glad to occupy with
him until conducted by her courier into finer ones. He made a gesture
of disgust, and his face burned with the shame of a proud man who has
received an affront from an inferior -- and who knows it to be his own
fault.

"I can at least have the satisfaction of setting that right," he
said, holding two notes toward the little Mirror man, "and I can't
thank you enough for giving me the opportunity."

Bulfinch drew back and stammered, "You don't think I spoke for that!
You don't think I'd have spoken at all if I had known -- "

"I do not. And I'm very glad you did not know, for it gives me a
chance to clear myself. You must have thought me strangely forgetful,
Mr Bulfinch, when the money was not repaid in due time."

"I -- I didn't relish the manner in which you met me just now, I
confess, but I'm very much ashamed of myself. I am indeed."

"Shake hands," said Braith, with one of his rare smiles.

The notes were left in Mr Bulfinch's fingers, and as he thrust them
hastily out of sight, as if he truly was ashamed, he said, blinking up
at Braith, "Do you -- er -- would you -- may I offer you a glass of
whiskey?" adding hastily, "I don't drink myself."

"Why, yes," said Braith, "I don't mind, but I won't drink all
alone."

"Coffee is my tipple," said the other, in a faint voice.

"All right; suit yourself. But I should think that rather hot for
such a day."

"Oh, I'll take it iced."

"Then let us walk over to the Cafe by the bandstand. We shall find
the others somewhere about."

They strolled through the grove, past the music-stand, and sat down at
one of the little iron tables under the trees. The band of the Garde
Republicaine was playing. Bulfinch ordered sugar and Eau de selz for
Braith, and iced coffee for himself.

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