Mrs. Faversham's dresses and jewels, her luxuries, her carriages and her horses, the extravagance of her life, had not dazzled Antony; his eyes had been pleased, but her possessions were a distinct envelope surrounding her and separating them. After watching Potowski's natatorial gestures, Fairfax had longed to swim out of the elegance into a freer sea.

He had told her nothing of his companion or of his life. He often longed to stuff some of the dainties of the table into his pockets for Dearborn, to carry away some of the fire in his hands, to bring something of the comfort back, but he would not have spoken for the world. Once she had broached the subject of further payment, and had seen by his tightening lips that she had made a mistake. In spite of the fact of his reserve and that he was proud to coldness and sometimes not quite kind, intimacy grew between them. Mrs. Faversham was engaged to be married, but Fairfax did not believe that she loved Cedersholm. What her feelings were, or why she wanted to marry him, he could not guess. The intimacy between them was caused by what they knew of each other as human beings, unknown, unexplained, unformulated. There was a tremendous sympathy, and neither the man nor the woman knew how real it was. And although there was her life—she was five years his senior—and his life with its tragedies, its depths and its ascensions, although there was all this unread and unspoken between them, neither of them, when they were together, was conscious of any past. A word, a touch, a look, a hazard chance would have revealed to them how near they stood.

As he went on modelling, he found that he was beginning to think of her as he had not let himself do during the weeks when she had sat for him. He found that he could not go on with his work now and think of her. He had voluntarily denied himself this day at Versailles where he might have enjoyed her for hours. When she had told him that she had written to Cedersholm about him he had smiled.

"He will not recall my name. I was an obscure pupil with others. He will not remember Tom Rainsford."

Evidently Cedersholm had not remembered him. The subject was never mentioned between them again. Except as he heard it in general conversation, Cedersholm's name was no longer frequently on Mrs. Faversham's lips. He stopped working, wrapped his plaster carefully and pushed the stool back into the corner. Near it was a pile of books which he had carefully done up to return to Mrs. Faversham. She had obtained orders for him from her friends, none of which he had accepted. Why should he be so churlish? Why should he refuse to take advantage of her kindness and generosity? Why should not her influence help him on his stony way? What part did his pride play in it? Was it on account of Cedersholm, or was it something else?

At noon he went out to eat his luncheon in a little cafÉ where he was known and popular. The little room was across a court-yard filled with potted plants on which the winter had laid icy fingers, but which to-day in the sunshine seemed to have garbed themselves with something like spring. The little restaurant was low, noisy, filled with the clatter and bustle of the noon meal served to hungry students and artists. The walls were painted by the brush of different skilful craftsmen, young artists who could not pay their accounts and had settled their scores by leaving paintings on the walls, and one could read distinguished names. When Fairfax came here, as he sometimes did, he always took a little table in the second and darker room by another window which gave on a quiet court on whose stones were heaped up the statues and remains of an old Louis XV palace. This room was reserved for the older and quieter clients, and here, at another table in the corner, a pretty girl with a shock of curly hair under a soft hat and an old cape and an old portfolio, always ate, and she sometimes smiled at him. He would catch her eye, and she was, as Fairfax, always alone.

Girl-students and grisettes, and others less respectable, had eyed him and elbowed him, but not one had tempted him. There was no merit in his celibacy, but to-day, as he glanced over at the English girl-student, something about her caught his attention as never before. She was half turned to him; her portfolio lay on the table at her side with the remains of a scanty lunch. Her head was bowed on her hands. She looked dejected, forlorn, bringing her little unhappiness to the small restaurant where so many strugglers and aspirants brought their hopes and their inspirations. This little bit of humanity seemed on this day uninspired, cast down, and he had remarked her generally before because of her gaiety, her eagerness, and he had avoided her because he knew that she would be sympathetic with him.

In a sort of revenge possible on himself, and feeling his own loneliness, he permitted himself to look long at her and saw how miserably poor her dress was, how rusty and dusty her cape, how trodden down were her little shoes. She was all in brown, from the old beaver hat to her boots, in a soft, old-faded note of colour, and her hair was gloriously golden like a chrysanthemum. As Antony looked at her she took out her handkerchief and wiped something off her cheek and from her eyes. His luncheon of steak and potatoes had been served him. He took up his napkin and his dinner and limped over to the table where the English girl sat bowed over.

"Would you like a comrade for luncheon? Say so, if you don't want me." He saw her start, wipe her eyes and look up with a sob on her lips.

"Oh, yes, I don't mind." Her voice was stifled. "Sit down, it is good of you."

The girl covered her face with her hands for a second and then wiped her eyes determinedly, as if she fetched herself out of stony depths. She smiled tremulously and her lips were as red and full and sweet as a rose.

"Garcon," he ordered, "fetch two bocks. Yes, mademoiselle, it will do you good."

"I say," she fluttered, "were you lonely over there in your corner?"

Fairfax nodded. She put out her little hand, stained with paint and oil, and it was cold and delicate as it touched his. It seemed to need the strength of the man's big, warm grasp.

"I have always liked your face, do you know—always," she said. "I knew that you could be a real pal if you wanted. You are not like the others. I expect you are a great swell at something. Writing?"

"No, I am a workman in Barye's studio—a sculptor."

"Oh," she said incredulously. "You look 'arrivÉ,' awfully distinguished. I expect you really are something splendid."

The beer came foaming. The girl lifted her glass with a hand which trembled. Tears hung on her lashes still, ready to fall, but she was a little sport and full of character and life. She nodded at Fairfax and murmured—

"Here's to our being friends."

Her voice was sweet and musical. They drank the draught to friendship.

Fairfax asked cruelly: "What made you cry?"

She touched her portfolio. "There," she said, "that is the reason. My last fortnight's work. I draw at Julian's, and I had a fearful criticism this morning, most discouraging. I am here on my own." She stopped and said rather faintly: "Why should I tell you?"

"We drank just now to the reason why you should."

"That's true," she laughed. "Well, then, this is my last week in Paris. I will have to go back to England and drop painting, unless they tell me that I am sure to have a career and that it is worth while."

A career! She was a soft, sweet, tender little creature in spite of her good comradeship and the brave little tilt to her hat, and she was fit for a home nest, and no more fit to battle with the storm of a career than a young bird with a tempest.

"Let me see your portfolio, will you?"

"First," she said practically, "eat your steak and your potatoes." Touching her eyes, she added: "I thought of what Goethe said as I cried here—'Wer nie sein Brot mit Thraenen ass'—only it's not the first bread and tears that have gone together in this room, I expect."

"No," returned Fairfax, "I reckon not, and you are lucky to have the bread, Mademoiselle. Some have only tears."

"I know," she returned softly, "and I have been most awfully lucky so far."

When they had finished he made the man clear away the things, and she spread out the contents of her portfolio before him, watching his face, as he felt, for every expression. He handled thoughtfully the bits of cardboard and paper, seeing on them only the evidence of a mediocre talent, a great deal of feeling, and the indications of a sensitive nature. One by one he looked at them and turned them over, and put them back and tied up the green portfolio by its black tapes. Then he looked at her, saw how white her little face had grown, how big and blue her eyes were, how childlike and inadequate she seemed to life.

"You need not speak," she faltered. "You were going to say I'm no good. I don't want to hear you say it."

Impulsively, he put out his strong hands and took hers that fluttered at her coat.

"Why should you care for what I say? You have your masters and your chiefs."

"Yes," she nodded, "and they have been awfully encouraging, all of them, until to-day."

Fairfax looked at her earnestly. "You must not mind if you feel that you have got it in you. Don't seek to hear others' opinions, just go boldly, courageously on. What I say has no meaning."

He dropped her hands and the colour came back somewhat into her face.

"What you say has importance, though," she answered. "I have the feeling that you are somebody. Anyhow, I have watched you every time you came. I think you know things. I believe you must be a great artist. I should believe you—I do believe you. I see you don't think I'm any good. Besnard didn't think so when he came to-day. I don't want to go on being a fool."

As she spoke, from the other restaurant came the notes of a fiddle and a flute, for two wandering musicians, habituÉs of these smaller cafÉs, had wandered in to earn the price of their luncheon. They were playing, not very well, but very plaintively, an old French song, one in vogue in the Latin Quarter. The sun, still magnificently brilliant, had found its way around to the back of the place, and over the court with the ruined marbles the light streamed through the window and fell on Fairfax and the little girl.

"What do you say," he suggested abruptly, "to coming with me for the afternoon? Let's go on the top of a tram and ride off somewhere."

He rose, paid the man who came for his luncheon (the girl's score had already been settled), and stood waiting. She fingered the tapes of her closed portfolio, her lips still trembled. The sunlight was full on her, shining on her hair, on her old worn cape, on the worn felt hat, on the little figure which had been so full of courage and of dreams. Then she looked up at Antony and rose.

"I will go," she said, and he picked up the portfolio, tucked it under his arm, and they walked out together, through the smoky larger room where part of the lunchers were joining in the chorus of the song the musicians played. And this little handful of the Latin Quarter saw the two pass out together, as two pass together often from those Bohemian refuges. Some one, as the door opened and shut on Antony and the girl, cried: "Vive l'amour!"