On inquiry of the concierge at No. 15 Avenue de Passy, Cuthbert was informed that Madame Michaud lived on the third floor. On ascending and ringing the bell the door was opened by an elderly servant.
"I have called to see Mademoiselle Brander, is she at home?"
"She is, sir."
"Would you give her my card, if you please?"
"Mademoiselle is expecting you," the servant said, and led the way at once into a sitting-room.
It was of the usual type of such room—of good size but bare, with bee's-waxed flooring, plainly frescoed walls, and a ceiling colored gray and bordered with painted arabesques. Two or three small rugs relieved the bareness of the floor. An oval table on very thin legs stood in the middle; the chairs and couch seemed to have been made to match it, and had an eminently bare and uncomfortable appearance; a vase of flowers stood on a spindle-legged little table in front of one of the windows which opened down to the ground. Some colored prints in frames of stained wood hung on the walls, and some skimpy curtains draped the windows.
Mary Brander was seated with a writing-pad on her knee at the window unoccupied by the vase and its support. She put the writing-pad and a book, evidently a large diary, down on the floor.
"You are punctual to the minute, Mr. Hartington. I should never have credited you with that virtue."
"Nor with any other virtue, I imagine, Miss Brander," he said, with a smile.
"Oh, yes, I do. I credit you with numbers of them. Now draw that chair up to the window—it is not comfortable, but it is the best of them—and let us talk. Now, in the first place you don't know how sorry, how dreadfully sorry I have been about what has happened at home. I was shocked, indeed, at the news of the sudden death of your dear father. He was always so kind when he came to see us, and I liked him so much, I felt for you deeply. It must have been an awful shock for you. I heard it a few days after I got to Dresden. Then came the other news about that terrible failure and its consequences. It seemed too shocking altogether that you should have lost the dear old place, but I do think I was most shocked of all when I heard that my father had bought it. Somehow it did not seem to be right. Of course it must have been, but it did not seem so to me. Did it to you, Cuthbert?" and she looked at him wistfully.
"I have no doubt it was all right," he said, "and as it was to be sold, I think I preferred it should be to your father rather than anybody else. I believe I rather liked the thought that as it was not to be my home it would be yours."
She shook her head.
"It does not seem to me to be natural at all, and I was miserable all the time I was there the other day."
"Your father respected my wishes in all respects, Mary. I believe he kept on all the old servants who chose to stay. He promised me that he would not sell my father's hunters, and that no one should ride them, but that they should be pensioners as long as they lived; and the same with the dogs, and that at any time, if I moved into quarters where I could keep a dog or two, he would send up my two favorites to me."
"Yes, they are all there. I went out and gave cakes to the dogs and sugar to the horses every day, and talked to them, and I think regularly had a cry over them. It was very foolish, but I could not help it. It did all seem so wrong and so pitiful. I could not learn much about you from father. He said that you had only written once to him on business since things were finally settled; but that you had mentioned that you were going to Paris, and he said, too—" and she hesitated for a moment, "that although you had lost Fairclose and all the property, you had enough to live upon in a way—a very poor way—but still enough for that."
"Not such a very poor way," he said. "There is no secret about it. I had five thousand pounds that had been settled on my mother, and fortunately that was not affected by the smash, so I have two hundred a year, which is amply sufficient for my wants."
"It is enough, of course, to live upon in a way, Cuthbert, but so different from what you were accustomed to."
"I don't suppose you spend two hundred a year," he said, with a smile.
"Oh, no, but a woman is so different. That is just what I have, and of course I don't spend anything like all of it; butas I said, it is so different with you, who have been accustomed to spend ever so much more."
"I don't find myself in any way pinched. I can assure you my lodgings in the Quartier Latin are not what you would call sumptuous, but they are comfortable enough, and they do not stand me in a quarter of what I paid for my chambers in London. I can dine sumptuously on a franc and a half. Another franc covers my breakfast, which is generallycafé au laitand two eggs; another franc suffices for supper. So you see that my necessaries of life, including lodgings and fuel, do not come to anything like half my income, and I can spend the rest in riotous living if I choose."
The girl looked at him earnestly.
"You are not growing cynical, I hope, Cuthbert?"
"I hope not. I am certainly not conscious of it. I don't look cynical, do I?"
"No," she said, doubtfully. "I do not see any change in you, but what do you do with yourself?"
"I paint," he said.
"Really!"
"Really and truly, I have become what you wanted me to become, a very earnest person indeed, and some day people may even take to buying my pictures."
"I never quite know when you are in earnest, Cuthbert; but if it is true it is very good news. Do you mean that you are really studying?"
"I am indeed. I work at the studio of one M. Goudé, and if you choose to inquire, you will find he is perhaps the best master in Paris. I am afraid the Prussians are going to interrupt my studies a good deal. This has made me angry and I have enlisted—that is to say, been sworn in as a member of the Chasseurs des Écoles, which most of the students at Goudé's have joined."
"What! You are going to fight against the Germans!" she exclaimed, indignantly. "You never can mean it, Cuthbert."
"I mean it, I can assure you," he said, amused at her indignation. "I suppose you are almost Germanized, and regard their war against the French as a just and holy cause."
"Certainly I do," she said, "though of course, I should not say so here. I am in France and living in a French family, and naturally I would say nothing that would hurt the feelings of the people round me, but there can be no doubt that the French deserve all the misfortunes that have fallen upon them. They would have invaded Germany, and all these poor young Germans have been torn away from their friends and families to fight."
"So have these young Frenchmen. To my mind the war was deliberately forced upon France, but I think we had better agree to differ on this subject. You have been among Germans and it is not unnatural that you should have accepted their version. I have been living among Frenchmen, and although I do not say that it would not have been much wiser if they had avoided falling into the pit dug for them, my sympathies are wholly with them, except in this outburst of folly that has resulted in the establishment, for a time at any rate, of a Republic. Now, I have no sympathy whatever with Republics, still less for a Republic controlled by political adventurers, and like many Frenchmen I am going to fight for France, and in no way for the Republic. At any rate let us agree to avoid the subject altogether. We shall never convince each other however much we might argue it over."
The girl was silent for two or three minutes, and then said—
"Well, we will agree not to quarrel over it. I don't know how it is that we always see things so differently, Cuthbert. However, we may talk about your doings without arguing over the cause. Of course you do not suppose there will be much fighting—a week or two will see the end of it all."
"Again we differ," he said. "I believe that there will be some sharp fighting, and I believe that Paris will hold out for months."
She looked at him incredulously.
"I should have thought," she said, after a pause, "you were the last person who would take this noisy shouting mob seriously."
"I don't think anything of the mob one way or the other," he said. "I despise them utterly; but the troops and the mobiles are sufficient to man the forts and the walls, and I believe that middle-class corps, like the one I have entered, will fight manfully; and the history of Paris has shown over and over again that the mob of Paris, fickle, vain-headed, noisy braggadocios as they are, and always have been, can at least starve well. They held out against Henry of Navarre till numbers dropped dead in the streets, and until the Spaniards came at last from the Netherlands and raised the siege, and I believe they will hold out now. They have courage enough, as has been shown over and over again at the barricades, but they will be useless for fighting because they will submit to no discipline. Still, as I said, they can starve, and it will be a long time indeed before the suffering will become intense enough to drive them to surrender. I fear that you have altogether underrated the gravity of the situation, and that you will have very severe privations to go through before the siege is over."
"I suppose I can stand it as well as others," she laughed, "but I think you are altogether wrong. However, if it should come it will be very interesting."
"Very," he said, shortly, "but I doubt if you will see it quite in the same light when it comes to eating rats."
"I should not eat them," she said, decidedly.
"Well, when it comes to that or nothing, I own that I myself shall eat rats if I can get them. I have heard that the country rat, the fellow that lives in ricks, is by no means bad eating, but I own to having a doubt as to the Paris rat."
"It is disgusting to think of such a thing," she said, indignantly, "the idea is altogether ridiculous."
"I do not know whether you consider that betting is among the things that woman has as much right to do as man; but if you do, I am ready to wager it will come to rats before Paris surrenders."
"I never made a bet in my life," she said, "but I will wager five francs with you that there will be nothing of the sort. I do not say that rats may not be eaten in the poor quarters. I donot know what they eat there. I hear they eat horse-flesh, and for anything I know they may eat rats; but I will wager that rats will never be openly sold as an article of food before Paris surrenders."
"It is a bet," he said, "and I will book it at once," and he gravely took out a pocket-book and made an entry. "And now," he said, as he replaced the book in his pocket, "how do you pass your time?"
"I spend some hours every day at the Bibliothêque. Then I take a walk in this quarter and all round the Boulevards. One can walk just as freely there as one could in Germany, but I find that I cannot venture off them into the poorer quarters; the people stare, and it is not pleasant."
"I certainly should not recommend you to make experiments that way. In the great thoroughfares a lady walking by herself passes unnoticed, especially if she looks English or American. They are coming to understand that young women in those countries are permitted an amount of freedom that is shocking to the French mind, but the idea has not permeated to the lower strata of society.
"If you are really desirous of investigating the ways of the female population of the poorer quarters, I shall be happy to escort you whenever you like, but I do not think you will be altogether gratified with the result of your researches, and I think that you would obtain a much closer insight into French lower class life by studying Balzac and some of the modern writers—they are not always savory, but at least they are realistic."
"Balzac is terrible," she said, "and some of the others I have read a little of are detestable. I don't think you can be serious in advising me to read them."
"I certainly should not advise you to read any of them, Miss Brander, if you were a young lady of the ordinary type; but as you take up the cause of woman in general it is distinctly necessary that you should study all the phases of female life. How else can you grapple with the question?"
"You are laughing at me again, Mr. Hartington," she said, somewhat indignantly.
"I can assure you that I am not. If your crusade is in favor only of girls of the upper and middle classes, you are touching but the fringe of the subject, for they are outnumbered by twenty to one by those of other classes, and those in far greater need of higher life than the others."
"It seems rather hopeless," Mary Brander said, despondently, after a pause, "one is so unable to influence them."
"Exactly so. You are setting yourself to move a mountain. When the time comes there may be an upheaval, and the mountain may move of its own accord; but the efforts of a thousand or ten thousand women as earnest as yourself would be no more use in proportion, than those of a colony of ants working to level the mountain."
"Don't discourage me, Cuthbert," she said, pitifully. "I do believe with all my heart in my principles, but I do often feel discouraged. The task seems to grow larger and more difficult the more I see of it, and I own that living a year among German women was rather crushing to me."
"That I can quite understand," he said, with a smile, "the average German woman differs as widely in her ideas—I do not say aspirations, for she has none—from your little group of theorists at Girton as the poles are apart."
"But do not think," she replied, rallying, "that I am in the least shaken because I see that the difficulty is greater than I have looked for. Your simile of ants is not correct. Great things can be done by individuals. Voltaire and Rousseau revolutionized French thought from the top to the bottom. Why should not a great woman some day rise and exercise as great influence over her sex as these two Frenchmen did? But do not let us talk about that any more. I want to hear more about what you are doing. I have thought of you so much during the past year—it has all seemed so strange and so sad. Are you really working hard—I mean steadily and regularly?"
"You evidently think that impossible," he laughed, "but I can assure you it is true. If you doubt me I will give you Goudé's address, and if you call upon him and say that you have an interest in me—you can assign any reason you like, say that youare an aunt of mine and intend to make me your heir—and beg him to inform you frankly of his opinion of my work and progress, I feel sure that he will give you an account that will satisfy your doubts."
"I don't think I could do that," she said, seriously. "There, you are laughing at me again," she broke off as she looked up at him. "Of course I could not do such a thing, but I should very greatly like to know about you."
"I do think, Miss Brander, I am working hard enough and steady enough to satisfy even you. I did so for six months in England with a fellow named Terrier. He was just the master I wanted. He had not a shadow of imagination, but was up in all the technical details of painting, and in six months' hard work I really learnt to paint; previous to that I knew nothing of painting. I could make a colored sketch, but that was all, now I am on the highway to becoming an artist. Goudé will only receive pupils whom he considers likely to do him credit, and on seeing two of the things I had done after I had been working with Terrier, he accepted me at once. He is a splendid master—out and away the best in Paris, and is really a great artist himself. He is a peppery little man and will tolerate no nonsense, and I can assure you that he is well satisfied with me. I am going to set to work to do a couple of pictures on my own account for next year's Salon. I should have waited another year before trying my wings, if he had not encouraged me to venture at once, and as he is very much opposed to his pupils painting for exhibition until they are sufficiently advanced to begin with a success, it is proof that he has at least some hopes of me."
"I am glad indeed, Cuthbert. I shan't be quite so sorry now as I have been about your losing Fairclose. It is so much nobler to work than it is to fritter away a life doing nothing. How tiresome it is," she said, "that you have taken this unfortunate idea in your head of joining a French corps. It will unsettle you altogether."
"Really," he broke in with a laugh, "I must protest against being considered so weak and unstable. You had a perfect rightin thinking me lazy, but I don't think you have any right in considering me a reed to be shaken by every passing wind. I can assure you that I am very fixed in my resolves. I was content to be lazy before simply because there was no particular reason for my being otherwise, and I admit that constitutionally I may incline that way; but when a cataclysm occurred, and, as I may say, the foundations were shaken, it became necessary for me to work, and I took a resolution to do so, and have stuck to it. Possibly I should have done so in any case. You see when a man is told by a young lady he is a useless idler, who does but cumber the earth, it wakes him up a little."
"I am sure I didn't say that," Mary said, indignantly, but with a hot flush on her cheeks.
"Not in those precise words, but you spoke to that effect, and my conscience told me you were not far wrong in your opinion. I had begun to meditate whether I ought not to turn over a new leaf when I came in suddenly for Fairclose; that of course seemed to knock it all on the head. Then came what we may call the smash. This was so manifestly an interposition of Providence in the direction of my bestirring myself that I took the heroic resolution to work."
Mary felt that it was desirable to avoid continuing the subject. She had long since come to regard that interview in the garden as a sort of temporary aberration on his part, and that although, perhaps, sincere at the moment, he had very speedily come to laugh at his own folly, and had recognized that the idea was altogether ridiculous. Upon her it had made so little impression that it had scarcely occurred to her when they met, that any passage of the sort had taken place, and had welcomed him as the lad she had known as a child, rather than as the man who had, under a passing impulse, asked her to marry him.
"I think," she said suddenly, "I will fetch Madame Michaud in. It will be nice for you to come here in the evening sometimes, and it would be better for her to ask you to do so than for me. These French people have such funny ideas."
"It would certainly be more pleasant," he agreed, "and evening will be the time that I have most leisure—that is to say, when we do not happen to be on duty, as to which I am very vague at present. They say the sailors will garrison the forts and the army take the outpost duty; but I fancy, when the Germans really surround us, it will be necessary to keep so strong a force outside the walls, that they will have to call out some of us in addition. The arrangement at present is, we are to drill in the morning and we shall paint in the afternoon; so the evening will be the only time when we shall be free."
"What do you do in the evening generally? You must find it very lonely."
"Not at all. I have an American who is in our school, and who lodges in the same house as I do. Then there are the students, a light-hearted, merry set of young fellows. We have little supper-parties and go to each other's rooms to chatter and smoke. Then, occasionally, I drop into the theatre. It is very much like the life I had in London, only a good deal more lively and amusing, and with a great deal less luxury and a very much smaller expenditure; and—this is very serious I can assure you—very much worse tobacco."
The girl laughed merrily.
"What will you do about smoking when you are reduced to the extremity you prophesy?"
"That point is, I confess, troubling me seriously. I look forward with very much greater dread to the prospect of having to smoke dried leaves and the sweepings of tobacco warehouses, than I do to the eating of rats. I have been making inquiries of all sorts as to the state of the stock of tobacco, and I intend this evening to invest five pounds in laying in a store; and mean to take up a plank and hide it under the floor, and to maintain the most profound secrecy as to its existence. There is no saying whether, as time goes on, it may not be declared an offence of the gravest character for any one to have a private store of any necessary. If you have any special weaknesses, such as chocolate or tea, or anything of that sort, I should advise you not to lose a moment in laying in a good stock. You will see in another week, when people begin torecognize generally what a siege means, that everything eatable will double in price, and in a month only millionaires will be able to purchase them."
"I really will buy some tea and chocolate," she said.
"Get in a good stock," he said. "Especially of chocolate. I am quite serious, I can assure you. Unfortunately, you have no place for keeping a sheep or two, or a bullock; and bread, at the end of a couple of months, could scarcely be eaten; but, really, I should advise you to invest in a dozen of those big square boxes of biscuits, and a ham or two may come in as a welcome addition some day."
Mary laughed incredulously, but she was much more inclined than before to look at matters seriously, when, on fetching Madame Michaud in, that lady, in the course of conversation, mentioned that her husband had that morning bought three sacks of flour and a hundred tins of preserved meats.
"He is going to get some boxes," she said, "and to have the flour emptied into them, then the baker will bring them round in a cart, so that no one will guess it is flour. He says it is likely that there will be an order issued that everything of that sort is to be given into a public store for general distribution, so it must be brought here quietly. He tells me that every one he knows is doing the same thing. My servant has been out this morning eight times and has been buying eggs. She has brought a hundred each time, and we are putting them in a cask in salt."
"Do you really think all that is necessary, madame?" Mary asked, doubtfully.
"Most certainly I do. They say everything will go up to such prices as never were heard of before. Of course, in a month or two the country will come to our rescue and destroy the Prussians, but till then we have got to live. Already eggs are fetching four times as much as they did last week. It is frightful to think of it, is it not, monsieur?"
"If I were in your place, madame, I would not reckon too surely on relief in a month. I think that there is no doubt that, as you say, there will be a prohibition of anyone keepingprovisions of any sort, and everything will be thrown into the public magazines. Likely enough every house will be searched, and you cannot hide your things too carefully."
"But why should they insist on everything being put in public magazines?" Mary asked. "It will not go further that way than if people keep their own stocks and eat them."
"It will be necessary, if for nothing else, to prevent rioting when the pinch comes, and people are starving in the poorer quarters. You may be sure if they have a suspicion that the middle and upper classes have food concealed in their houses, they will break in and sack them. That would only be human nature, and therefore in the interest of order alone a decree forbidding anyone to have private stores would have to be passed; besides it would make the food go much further, for you may be sure that everything will be doled out in the smallest quantities sufficient to keep life together, and before the end of the siege comes each person may only get two or three ounces of bread a day."
Madame Michaud nodded as if prepared to be reduced even to that extremity.
"You are right, monsieur, I am going to get stuff and to make a great number of small bags to hold the flour; then we shall hide it away under the boards in many places, so that if they find some they may not find it all."
"The idea is a good one, madame, but it has its disadvantages. If they find one parcel they will search so closely everywhere that they will find the rest. For that reason one good hiding-place, if you could invent one, would be better than many."
"One does not know what is best to do," Madame Michaud said, with a gesture of tragic despair. "Who could have thought that such a thing could happen to Paris!"
"It is unexpected, certainly," Cuthbert agreed, "but it has been foreseen, otherwise they would never have taken the trouble to build this circle of forts round Paris. They are useful now not only in protecting the city but in covering a wide area, where the cattle and sheep may feed under the protection ofthe guns. I don't think we are as likely to be as badly off for meat as for bread, for after the flocks and herds are all eaten up there are the horses, and of these there must be tens of thousands in Paris."
"That is a comfort, certainly," the Frenchwoman said, calmly, while Mary Brander made a little gesture of disgust.
"I have never tried horseflesh myself, at least that I know of, but they say it is not so bad; but I cannot think that they will have to kill the horses for food. The country will not wait until we are reduced to that extremity."
"Mr. Hartington has joined one of the regiments of volunteers, Madame Michaud."
"That is good of you, monsieur; my husband is in the National Guard, and they say every one will have to take up a musket; but as you are a foreigner, of course this would not apply to you."
"Well, for the time being I consider myself a Parisian, and as a German shell is just as likely to fall on the roof of the house where I live as on any other, I consider myself to be perfectly justified in doing my best in self-defence."
"I trust that you will call whenever you are disposed in the evening, monsieur," Madame Michaud said, cordially; "it will give my husband pleasure to meet an English gentleman who is voluntarily going to fight in the cause of France."
"Thank you, madame. I shall be very glad to do so. Mademoiselle's father is a very old friend of our family, and I have known her ever since she was a little child. It will be pleasant to me to make the acquaintance of monsieur. And now, Miss Brander, I must be going."
As he sauntered back into the city, Cuthbert met an English resident with whom he had some slight acquaintance.
"So you are not among the great army of deserters, Mr. Phipson?"
"No, I thought it better to stay here and see it out. If the Germans come in I shall hang out the English flag and I have no doubt that it will be all right. If I go away the chances are that I should find the place sacked when I return."
"Then, of course, you will keep your place open."
"It will be closed to the public to-morrow—to the public, mind you. My English customers and friends, if they come to the little door in the Arcade, and give two knocks, and then three little ones with their knuckles on the door, will find it open, and can be served as long as there is any liquor left; but for the last three days I have been clearing out nearly all my stock. The demand has been tremendous, and I was glad enough to get rid of it, for even if the place isn't looted by the mob all the liquors might be seized by the authorities and confiscated for public use. I shall be glad when the doors are closed, I can tell you, for these people are enough to make one sick. The way they talk and brag sets my fingers itching, and I want to ask them to step into the back room, take off their coats, those uniforms they are so proud of, and stand up for a friendly round or two just to try what they are made of.
"I reckon if a chap can't take one on the nose and come up smiling, he would not be worth much when he has to stand up against the Prussians. I thought I understood them pretty well after having been coachman here for over twenty years, but I see now that I was wrong altogether. Of course I knew they were beggars to talk, but I always thought that there was something in it, and that if it came to fighting they would show up pretty well; but to hear them going on now as to what France will do and doing nothing themselves, gives one a sickener. Then the way as they blackguard the Emperor, who wasn't by any means a bad chap, puts my monkey up I can tell you. Why there is not one in fifty of them as is fit to black his boots. He had a good taste in horses too, he had; and when I hear them going on, it is as much as I can do not to slip in to them.
"That is one reason why I am stopping. A week ago I had pretty well made up my mind that I would go, but they made me so mad that I says to myself, I will stop and see it out, if itis only for the pleasure of seeing these fellows get the licking they deserve. I was out yesterday evening. There was every café crowded; there was the singing-places fuller than I ever saw them; there were drunken soldiers, who ought to have been with their regiments outside the walls, reeling about the streets. Any one as seed the place would have put it down that it was a great fête-day. As to the Prussians outside no one seemed to give them a thought. If you went from table to table you heard everyone saying that the Germans would be destroyed, and that every one who talked of peace now was a traitor."
"I quite agree with you," Cuthbert said, "they are most extraordinary people. Still I do think they will fight."
"Well, sir, I don't know whether you have heard the news that they have been licked this morning somewhere out near Clamart. I heard just now that a lot of the linesmen bolted and never stopped running till they got into Paris, but they say the Breton mobiles fought well, though they had to fall back at last."
"The troops are disorganized at present," Cuthbert said; "but when you see what a tremendous thrashing they have had it is hardly to be expected that they should fight with any confidence, but when discipline is restored and they have had a few skirmishes they will be different men altogether. As to the mobiles, they are mere peasants at present, but a month of hard work will turn them into soldiers, and I should say better soldiers than the linesmen; but I am afraid they will never make anything out of the National Guard. The only way to do so will be to establish big camps outside the walls and send them all out there and put strict army men in command, with a regiment of regulars in each camp to carry out their orders. It would be necessary, no doubt, to shoot a few hundred of them before anything like discipline could be established; and once a week the whole should be sent out to attack the Germans so as to teach them to be steady under fire. In that way they might be turned into decent soldiers."
"Lord bless you, sir, Government would never try that. There would be barricades in the streets in no time, and asthe soldiers are all outside the walls the mob would upset the Government in a week."
"I am not at all saying it would do, but it is the only thing to make soldiers of them."
"Well, sir, you will know where to come when things get bad. I don't expect there will be any beer to be had, but I have been down with my son Bob into the cellar for the last four nights. I could not trust the French waiters, and we dug holes and have buried a couple of dozen kegs of my best spirits, so if they make a clear sweep of the rest I reckon we shall be able to keep that door open a goodish while."
"I shan't forget, and I hope that your spirits may escape the searchers, but you know just at present we are not popular in Paris. They have got an idea in their heads that we ought to have declared war against the Germans on their behalf; why, Heaven knows, but you may be sure that all the English places will be very strictly searched."
"Yes, I reckon on that, and we have got them twelve feet deep. It will be a job to get them out as we want them, but there won't be anything else to do and it will keep us in health."
Cuthbert had asked all the students to come in and smoke a pipe that evening in his room, and had ordered supper to be sent in.
"I am going to have it there instead of one of the usual places," he said, "because I don't think it is decent to be feasting in a public at a time like this. I expect it is about the last time we shall have anything like a supper. Things will be altogether beyond the reach of our purses in another week. Besides, I hope we shall be outside before long."
Arnold Dampierre was the first to come in.
"I am disgusted with the Parisians," he said, moodily.
"Well, yes, I am not surprised. It is not quite the spirit in which your people entered on their struggle, Dampierre."
"No, we meant it; the struggle with us was to get to the front. Why, do you know, I heard two or three of the National Guard grumbling in the highest state of indignation, and why, do you think? Because they had to sleep in the open air last night.Are these the men to defend a city? There will be trouble before long, Cuthbert. The workmen will not stand it; they have no faith in the Government nor in Trochu, nor in any one."
"Including themselves, I hope," Cuthbert smiled.
"They are in earnest. I have been up at——" and he hesitated, "Montmartre this afternoon, and they are furious there."
"They are fools," Cuthbert said, scornfully, "and no small proportion are knaves besides. They read those foul pamphlets and gloat over the abuse of every decently dressed person. They rave against the Prussians, but it is the Bourgeois they hate. They talk of fighting, while what they want is to sack and plunder."
"Nothing of the kind," the American said, hotly. "They want honesty and purity, and public spirit. They see vice more rampant than it was in the days of the Empire. They see the Bourgeois shirking their duty. They see license and extravagance everywhere."
"It is a pity they don't look at home," Cuthbert laughed good-temperedly. "I have not yet learnt that either purity or honesty, or a sense of duty are conspicuous at Montmartre or Belleville. There is just as much empty vaporing there as there is down the Boulevards. As to courage, they may have a chance presently of showing whether they have more of it than the better class. Personally, I should doubt it." Then he added more seriously, "My dear Dampierre, I can of course guess where you have learnt all this. I know that Minette's father is one of the firebrands of his quarter, and that since she has been earning an income here he has never done a stroke of work, but has taken up the profession of politician. I am not doubting his sincerity. He may be for aught I know perfectly in earnest, but it is his capacity I doubt. These uneducated men are able to see but one side of the question, and that is their own.
"I am not at all blind to the danger. I believe it is possible that we are going to have another red revolution. Your men at Belleville and Montmartre are capable of repeating the worst and most terrible features of that most awful time, but you knowwhat came of it and how it ended. Even now some of these blackguard prints are clamoring for one man to take the supreme control of everything. So far there are no signs of that coming man, but doubtless, in time, another Bonaparte may come to the front and crush down disorder with an iron heel; but that will not be until the need for a saviour of society is evident to all. I hope, my dear fellow, you will not be carried away with these visionary ideas. I can, of course, understand your predilections for a Republic, but between your Republic and the Commune, for which the organs of the mob are already clamoring, there is no shadow of resemblance. They are both founded, it is true, on the will of the majority, but in the States it is the majority of an educated and distinctly law-abiding people—here it is the majority of men who would set the law at defiance, who desire power simply for the purposes of spoliation."
Dampierre would have replied angrily, but at this moment the door opened and two or three of the other students entered.
"Have you heard about that affair at Clamart," they demanded eagerly. "They say the line behaved shamefully, and that Trochu declares they shall be decimated."
"You may be quite sure that if he said so he will not carry it out," Cuthbert said. "The army has to be kept in a good humor, and at any rate until discipline is fully restored it would be too dangerous a task to venture on punishing cowardice. It is unfortunate certainly, but things will get better in time. You can hardly expect to make the fugitives of a beaten army into heroes all at once. I have not the least doubt that if the Germans made an attack in full force they would meet with very slight resistance; but they won't do that. They will go to work in a regular and steady way. They will erect batteries, commanding every road out of the town, and will then sit down and starve us out, hastening the process, perhaps, by a bombardment. But all that will take time. There will be frequent fighting at the outposts, and if Trochu and the rest of them make the most of the material they have at hand, poor as much of it is, they will be able to turn out an army that should be strong enough to throw itself upon any point in the German line andbreak its way out; but it must be an army of soldiers, not a force composed of disheartened fugitives and half-drilled citizens."
"The National Guard are drilling earnestly," René Caillard said. "I have been watching them this afternoon, they really made a very good show."
"The father of a family with a comfortable home and a prosperous business can drill as well as the most careless vaurien, René; better, perhaps, for he will take much greater pains; but when it comes to fighting, half a dozen reckless daredevils are worth a hundred of him. I think if I had been Trochu I would have issued an order that every unmarried man in Paris between the ages of sixteen and forty-five should be organized into, you might call it, the active National Guard for continual service outside the walls, while the married men should be reserved for defending theenceinteat the last extremity. The outside force might be but a third of the whole, but they would be worth as much as the whole force together. That is why I think that our corps may distinguish itself. We have none of us wives or families and nothing much to lose, consequently we shall fight well. We shan't mind hardships for we have not been accustomed to luxuries. We are fighting as volunteers and not because the law calls us under arms.
"We are educated and have got too much self-respect to bolt like rabbits. I don't say we may not retire. One can't do impossibilities, and if others don't stand, we can't oppose a Prussian Army Corps. There is one thing you must do, and that is preserve good discipline. There is no discipline at all in the National Guard. I saw a party of them yesterday drilling, and two or three of them quietly marched out of the ranks and remonstrated on terms of the most perfect equality, with their colonel as to an order he had given. The maxim of the Republic may do for civil life, though I have not a shadow of belief either in equality or fraternity; nor have I in liberty when liberty means license; whether that be so or not equality is not consistent with military discipline. An army in which the idea of equality reigns is not an army but a mob, and is nomore use for fighting purposes than so many armed peasants. The Shibboleth is always absurd and in a case like the present ruinous. The first duty of a soldier is obedience, absolute and implicit, and a complete surrender of the right of private judgment."
"And you would obey an officer if you were sure that he were wrong, Cuthbert?"
"Certainly I would. I might, if the mistake did not cost me my life, argue the matter out with him afterwards, if, as might happen among us, we were personal acquaintances; but I should at the same time carry out the order, whatever it might be, to the best of my power. And now I propose that for this evening we avoid the subject of the siege altogether. In future, engaged as we are likely to be, we shall hardly be able to avoid it, and moreover the bareness of the table and the emptiness of the wine-cups will be a forcible reminder that it will be impossible to escape it. Did you show Goudé your sketch for your picture for the Salon, René?"
"I did, after you had all gone, and I have not got over the interview yet. His remarks on the design, conception, and the drawing were equally clear and decisive. He more than hinted that I was a hopeless idiot, that the time he had given me was altogether wasted, that I had mistaken my avocation, and that if the Germans knocked me on the head it would be no loss either to myself or to society in general. It is true that after he had finished he cooled down a bit and made a number of suggestions from which I gathered that if the whole thing were altered, my idea of the background altogether changed, the figures differently posed, the effect of light and shade diametrically reversed, and a few other trifling alterations made, the thing might possibly be hung on the top line. Ma foi, I feel altogether crushed, for I had really flattered myself that the sketch was not altogether without merit."
When the laugh had subsided Cuthbert said—
"Courage, René, Goudé's bark is always worse than his bite, and I have no doubt he will take a much more favorable view of it as you get on."
"It is all very well for you to say so," René said, ruefully. "You are a spoiled child, Goudé has never a word of reproof for you."
"Probably because he knows very well that I shall not break my heart over it. We must hold a committee of inspection on your work to-morrow; none of us have seen your design yet, and we may be able between us to make some useful suggestion."
"No, no," René exclaimed. "Heaven protect me from that. Do you come, Cuthbert; none of us mind what you say about our pictures. Your criticisms do not hurt. One would no more think of being angry with you for using your knife than with a surgeon for performing an operation."
"Very well, René, I will come round early. I have no doubt your sketch is a very good one on the whole, and after a few little changes it will satisfy even Goudé. By the way, have you heard we are to elect our company officers to-morrow?"
"Will you stand? I am sure you would have all our votes—that is twenty-five to start with, and as we know most of the fellows in the company we certainly could secure all those who have not any candidate they want to run; besides, there are, of course, to be three officers, so we should be able to traffic votes."
"No officering for me," Cuthbert laughed. "In the first place I have no greater qualifications for the post than anyone else, and in the second place, I am English, and though I might be elected—thanks to your votes—I should never be liked or trusted; besides, I have not a shadow of ambition that way. I am going to fight if necessary. I shall have my note-book in my pocket, and I have no doubt that when we are lying waiting for our turn to come, I shall have lots of opportunities for jotting down little bits that will work into the great battle picture which is to have the place of honor some day in the Salon. I think it will certainly be pleasant to have one of our own number among the officers, and I propose that each of us puts down on a slip of paper the name of the man he thinks will make the best leader and throw it into a hat; then, whoever gets themost votes, we will all support, and, as you say, by a little traffic in the votes, we ought to be able to get him in among the three."
"Are you absolutely determined not to stand?"
"Absolutely and positively. So please do not any of you put my name down, two or three votes thrown away like that might alter the decision."
He tore up a sheet of paper into small slips and passed them round.
"Before we begin to write," he said, "let it be understood that no one is to vote for himself. I don't mind telling you who I am going to vote for. It is Henri Vancour. This is a matter in which it should be no question of personal liking. We should choose the man who appears to us best fitted for the post."
The name came as a surprise upon the others, for Henri was one of the last whom it would have occurred to them to choose. Pencils were already in their hands and they were on the point of writing when he spoke, and almost all would have given their votes either for René Caillard or Pierre Leroux, who were the two most popular men among the party. There was a pause for some little time before the pencils went to work.
They had not thought of Henri, but now they did think of him they acknowledged to themselves that there was a good deal to be said in his favor. He was a Norman—quiet, hard-working, and even-tempered. His voice was seldom heard in the chorus of jokes and laughter, but when asked for an opinion he gave it at once concisely and decidedly. He was of medium height and squarely built. His face was cast in a rough mould and an expression of resolution and earnestness was predominant. He had never joined either in the invective against the Emperor, or in the confident anticipations of glorious successes over the Germans.
He listened but said nothing, and when questioned would reply, "Let us see some one do better than the Emperor before we condemn him. We will hope for the best, but so far predictions have been so wrong that it would be better to wait andsee before we blow our trumpets." He had but little genius, this young Norman, but he had perseverance and power.
M. Goudé scolded him less than others with far greater talent, and had once said, "you will never be a great painter, Henri. I doubt if you will ever be in the first line, but you will take a good place in the second. You will turn out your pictures regularly and the work will always be good and solid. You may not win any great prizes, but your work will be esteemed, and in the end you will score as heavily as some of those who possess real genius."
Yes, Henri was, they all felt, now they thought it over, one they could rely upon. He would not lose his head, he would be calm in danger, as he was calm at all other times, and he certainly would show no lack of courage. Accordingly when the papers were opened he was found to have received a considerable majority of the votes.
"Thank you for choosing me, comrades," he said, quietly. "I can only say that if elected I will do my best. A man can't say more than that. Why you should have fixed upon me I cannot think, but that is your business. I think I can promise at any rate that I won't run away."
When the Franc-tireurs des Écoles assembled the next morning, half an hour was given for consultation; then the vote was taken, and Henri Vancour was declared elected first Lieutenant of the company composed entirely of the art students, the Captain being François des Valles, who belonged to an old provincial family, a tall, dark, handsome young man, extremely popular among his comrades.
"I think he will do very well," Cuthbert said, as the company fell in. "There is no fear of his leaving us when under fire; his failing, if he has one, will be that he may want to keep us there too long. It is quite as necessary when you are fighting by the side of fellows who are not to be relied on, to know when to retreat as it is to know when to advance."
This was their first parade in uniform. This had been decided upon at the first meeting held to settle the constitution of the corps, and a quiet gray had been chosen which looked neatand workmanlike by the side of many of the picturesque but inappropriate costumes, selected by the majority of the Franc-tireurs. They had already had three days' drill and had learned to form from line into column and from column into line, to advance as skirmishers and to rally on the centres of the companies. They now marched out through the gates and were first taught to load the chassepots which had been bought by a general subscription in the schools, and then spent the morning in practising, and skirmishing, and advancing and retreating in alternate files.
When they were formed up again the old colonel said, "You are getting on well, men. Two more mornings' work and we will go out and complete our lessons in the face of the enemy."
When dismissed at the end of the third day, they were told to bring next morning, the gray greatcoats and blankets that formed part of their uniform. "Let each man bring with him three days' provisions in his bag," the colonel said, "ammunition will be served out to you and you will soon learn how to use it to advantage."
M. Goudé grumbled much when he heard that his whole class were going to be absent for three days.
"A nice interruption to study," he said, "however, you were none of you doing yourselves any good, and you may as well be out in the fields as hanging about the streets gossiping. We can always talk, but during the past six weeks Paris has done nothing but talk. Don't come back with any of your number short. You have all got something in you and are too good for food for Prussian powder."
Cuthbert went that evening to the Michauds, in his uniform, not for the purpose of showing it off, but because men in plain clothes, especially if of fair complexions, were constantly stopped and accused of being German spies, were often ill-treated, and not unfrequently had to pass a night in the cells beforethey could prove their identity. Mary gave an exclamation of surprise at seeing him so attired, but made no remark until after chatting for half an hour with the Michauds. The husband presently made the excuse that he had to attend a meeting and went off, while madame took up some knitting, settled herself in an easy chair, and prepared for a quiet doze, then Mary said in English—
"I have no patience with you, Cuthbert, taking part with these foolish people. The more I see of them the more I get tired of their bombast and their empty talk. Every man expects everyone else to do something and no one does anything."
"They have had nothing to stir them into action yet," he said, "only the regulars and the moblots go outside the wall, and the National Guard are practically useless until the Germans make an assault. Besides, three parts of them are married men with families, and nothing short of their homes being in danger will stir them up to risk their lives. We are going out for three days to the outposts, we fall in at five o'clock to-morrow morning."
"You are going to risk your life," she said, indignantly, "for the Parisians, who have no idea whatever of risking theirs. I call it madness."
"You are going against your own doctrines, Miss Brander. Before you were indignant with me for doing nothing and being in earnest about nothing. Now that I am doing something and that in grim earnest, you are just as indignant as you were before."
"I did not mean this sort of thing," she said.
"No, I don't suppose you contemplated this. But you wanted me to work for work's sake, although as it seemed then there was no occasion for me to work."
"If it had been on the other side I should not have minded."
"Just so," he smiled. "You have become Germanized, I have not. My friends here have all enlisted; I am going with them partly because they are my friends and partly because it is evident the Germans might have well stopped this war beforenow, but they demand terms that France can never submit to as long as there is the faintest hope of success. You need not be at all anxious about me. We are not going to attack the Prussian positions I can assure you. We are only going out to do a little outpost duty, to learn to hear the bullets flying without ducking, and to fire our rifles without shutting our eyes. I don't suppose there are five men in the three companies who have ever fired a rifle in their lives.
"You see the Franc-tireurs are to a great extent independent of the military authorities—if you can call men military authorities who exercise next to no authority over their soldiers. The Franc-tireurs come and go as they choose, and a good many of them wear the uniform only as a means of escape from serving, and as a whole they are next to useless. I think our corps will do better things. We are all students of art, law or physic, and a good deal like such volunteer corps as the artists or 'Inns of Court.' Some of the younger professors are in the ranks, and at least we are all of average intelligence and education, so I fancy we shall fight if we get a chance. I don't mean now, but later on when we have gained confidence in ourselves and in our rifles. Just at present the Parisians are disposed to look upon the Germans as bogies, but this will wear off, and as discipline is recovered by the line, and the mobiles grow into soldiers, you will see that things will be very different; and although I don't indulge in any vain fancy that we are going to defeat the German army, I do think that we shall bear ourselves like men and show something of the old French spirit."
"That will be a change, indeed," the girl said, scornfully.
"Yes, it will be a change," he answered, quietly, "but by no means an impossible one. You must not take the vaporings and bombast of the Paris Bourgeois or the ranting of Blanqui and the Belleville roughs as the voice of France. The Germans thought that they were going to take Paris in three days. I doubt if they will take it in three months. If we had provisions I should say they would not take it in treble that time. They certainly would not do it without making regular approaches, and before they can do that they have to capture some of the forts. These, as you know, are manned by 10,000 sailors, hardy marines and Bretons, well disciplined and untainted by the politics which are the curse of this country. Well, I must be going. I have to purchase my three days' store of provisions on my way back to my lodgings and shall have to turn out early."
"Don't do anything rash," she said, earnestly.
"I can assure you rashness is not in my line at all, and I don't suppose we shall ever get within five hundred yards of a Prussian soldier. You need not be in the least uneasy, even supposing that you were inclined to fidget about me?"
"Of course, I should fidget about you," she said, indignantly. "After knowing you ever since I was a little child, naturally I should be very sorry if anything happened to you."
"By the way," he said, without pursuing the subject farther, "I hear that there is a movement on foot for forming a corps of women. If they should do so it will afford you another illustration of the equality of your sex to ours in all matters, and I will go so far as to admit that I would much rather lead a company of the market-women than one composed of these Parisian shopkeepers."
"Don't, Mr. Hartington," she said, appealingly, "I don't feel equal to fighting now."
"Then we won't fight. Good-bye! If we are not lucky enough to light upon some empty cottages to sleep in I fancy the gloss will be taken out of this uniform before I see you again." He picked up his cap, shook hands, and was gone.
Madame Michaud woke up as the door closed.
"He has gone? your tall countryman."
"Yes, he is going out to-morrow to the outposts. I think it is very silly of him and very wrong mixing up in a quarrel that does not concern him, especially when there are tens of thousands here in Paris who, instead of fighting for their country, are content to sit all day in cafés and talk."
"They will fight when the time comes," Madame Michaudsaid, complacently. "They will fight like heroes. The Prussians will learn what Frenchmen are capable of doing."
But Mary had no patience just at present to listen to this sort of thing, and with the excuse that her head ached went at once to her room.
"I do not understand these English," Madame Michaud thought, as she drew the lamp nearer and resumed her knitting, "here are a young woman and a young man who are more like comrades than lovers. She was angry, more angry than I thought she could be, for she is generally good-tempered, when I asked her, the first time he came, if they wereaffiancés, 'We are old friends, madame,' she said, 'and nothing but friends. Cannot a girl have a man as a friend without there being any thought of love? In England people are friends, they can talk and laugh to each other without any silly ideas of this sort occurring to them. This is one of the things that keeps woman back in the scale, this supposition that she is always thinking of love.' I did not believe her then, but I have listened to-night when they thought I was asleep, and I even peeped out two or three times between my eyelids. I could not understand a word of what they said, but one can tell things by the tone without understanding the words. There was no love-making. She scolded him and he laughed. He sat carelessly in his chair, and did not move an inch nearer to her. She was as straight and as upright as she always is.
"That is not the way lovers act when one is going out to fight. I peeped out when he shook hands with her. He did not hold her hand a moment, he just shook it. They are strange people, these English. It would be wrong for a French girl thus to talk to a young man, but I suppose it is different with them. Who can understand these strange islanders? Why, if Lucien were going out to fight I should dissolve in tears, I should embrace him and hang on his neck; I might even have hysterics, though I have never had them in my life. She is a good girl, too, though she has such strange ideas about women. What can she want for them? I manage the house and Lucien goes to his office. If I say a thing is to be done in the houseit is done. I call that equality. I cannot tell what she is aiming at. At times it seems to me that she is even more mad than her compatriots, and yet on other subjects she talks with good sense. What her father and mother can be about to let her be living abroad by herself is more than I can think. They must be even more mad than she is."
Work at M. Goudé's school went on steadily during the intervals between the turns of the Franc-tireurs des Écoles going out beyond the walls. Indeed M. Goudé acknowledged that the work was better than usual. Certainly the studio was never merrier or more full of life. So far from the active exercise and the rough work entailed by the constant vigilance necessary during the long night-watches, diminishing the interest of the young fellows in their work in the studio, it seemed to invigorate them, and they painted as if inflamed with the determination to make up for lost time.
It converted them, in fact, for the time, from a group of careless, merry young fellows, into men with a sense of responsibility. Their time when away from the studio had previously been spent in follies and frivolities. They often drank much more than was good for them, smoked inordinately, were up half the night, and came in the morning to work with heavy heads and nerveless hands. Now they were soldiers, men who matched themselves against the invaders of their country, who risked their lives in her defence, and they bore themselves more erectly, a tone of earnestness replaced a languid indifference and a carelessness as to their work, and in spite of some privations in the way of food their figures seemed to expand.
The loss of two nights' sleep a week rendered early hours necessary, and ensured sound sleep during the remaining five. The discipline of the studio had been relaxed. The master felt that at such a time he could not expect the same silent concentration on work that it demanded at other times, but he found to his surprise that while they laughed and joked as they painted, they worked none the worse for this, and that in fact there was a general improvement manifest.
Cuthbert heartily enjoyed the change; the prevailing tone wasmore like that to which he was accustomed at the studios of St. John's Wood than was the somewhat strict discipline that had before prevailed in the studio, and he enjoyed the hard work and excitement outside the walls. The fact that they were running the same risks and sharing in the same work was an added bond of union among the students; and, although, when they met, as they very frequently did in each other's lodgings, there was less uproarious fun than before; there was a healthier atmosphere, and more pleasant and earnest talk.
Arnold Dampierre was the only exception to the general rule. When in the field he evinced no want of spirit, and upon the contrary was always ready to volunteer when a few men were required to crawl forward at night to ascertain the precise position of the Prussian outposts or to endeavor to find out the meaning of any stir or movement that might be heard towards their front. At other times his fits of moodiness seemed to increase. He was seldom present at any of the gatherings of his companions, but went off after work at the studio was over, and it was generally late at night before he returned to his rooms.
Cuthbert felt that the American avoided all opportunities of conversation with him alone. He replied cordially enough to his greeting when they met, but they no longer dropped in to smoke a pipe in each other's apartments as they formerly had done. Cuthbert had no great difficulty in guessing at the reasons for this change in their relations. He himself when he first noticed that Arnold was taking the first place with Minette had spoken to him half-jestingly, half-seriously, on the subject. He had never made any secret of his own distrust of the model, and in the early days of their intercourse had spoken freely to Arnold on the subject. He could understand that if the American, as it appeared, had become really attached to her, he would shrink from the risk of any expostulations on the course he had adopted.
Cuthbert believed that his comrade was at present in a state of indecision, and that, although deeply in love, he had not asyet been able to bring himself to the idea of taking Minette back as his wife to his home in Louisiana.
"It would be sheer madness," he said to himself, "and yet I have no doubt it will end in his doing so, but as he must know it is a piece of stupendous folly, I can understand his reluctance to risk my speaking to him on the subject. I am awfully sorry for him, but I know it is one of those cases in which, now that it has gone as far as it has, it would be worse than useless to try to interfere, and would only make him more bent upon going through with it. I don't see that one can do anything but trust to the chapter of accidents. Minette, dazzled as she might be by the prospect of marrying a gentleman and a man of property, might still hesitate to do so if it would entail her having to leave Paris and live abroad.
"I have no doubt that she is very fond of Dampierre, but she may change her mind. He may be killed before this business is over. He may decide to return to America directly the siege ends, with the idea of coming over to fetch her afterwards, and either he may get over his infatuation, or on his return may find that some one else has supplanted him in her affections. I should not fancy that constancy would be one of her strong points; at any rate I do not see that I can do any good by meddling in the matter, though if Dampierre spoke to me about it, I should certainly express my opinion frankly. It is much the best that things should go on between us as they are now doing. He is a hot-headed beggar, and the probabilities are strong in the favor of our having a serious quarrel if the subject were ever broached between us."
One evening Cuthbert had taken up a book after his return from the studio, and sat reading until it was long past his usual dinner hour before he went out. He passed through several badly lighted streets on his way to the restaurant in the Palais Royal, where he intended to dine. There were but few people about, for the evening was wet. He was vaguely conscious that some one was going in the same direction as himself, for he heard footsteps following him a short distance behind. In one of the worst lighted and most silent streets the steps suddenlyquickened. Cuthbert turned sharply round. He was but just in time, for a man who had been following him was on the point of springing upon him with uplifted arm.
Cuthbert felt rather than saw that there was a knife in his hand, and struck straight from the shoulder at his face; the fellow was in the act of striking when he received the blow. He fell as if shot, the knife, flying from his hand, clattering on the pavement several yards away. Cuthbert stood for a moment prepared to strike again if the man rose, but as he made no movement he turned on his heel and walked on.
"It would serve him right if I were to give the scoundrel in charge for attempted murder," he said, "but it would give me no end of bother. It would not be worth the trouble, and he has been pretty well punished. I have cut my knuckles, and I imagine that when he comes to be will find himself minus some of his teeth. I wonder what his object was robbery, I suppose and yet it is hardly likely that the fellow would have singled me out and decided to kill me on the off chance of finding something worth taking. He could not have seen that I have a watch on, for my greatcoat is buttoned. It is more like an act of private revenge, but I have never given anyone of that class any reason to dislike me. Cartainly the man followed me for some distance, for I have heard the steps behind me ever since I turned off into these quiet streets.
"By the way," he exclaimed, suddenly, "I should not be at all surprised if he took me for Dampierre. We are about the same height, and although I am a good many inches wider than he is, that might not be noticed in the dark. If the fellow was watching outside the door, and had known nothing of there being another man of the same height in the house, he might very well have taken me for Arnold. He spends half his time up at Montmartre, and may likely enough have given offence to some of the ruffians up there; when he is not in a pleasant temper he does not mind what he says. Possibly, too, the fellow may be an admirer of Minette, and the thing may be this outcome of jealousy. At any rate I will tell him in the morning about the affair and let him take warning by it if he chooses."
Accordingly, next morning he waited outside in the street for Arnold, who was generally the last to arrive at the studio.
"Rather an unpleasant thing happened yesterday evening, Dampierre. I was followed from here and attacked suddenly in one of the back streets leading up to the Boulevards. I had heard footsteps behind me for a little time and had a vague sort of idea that I was being followed. The fellow ran up suddenly and I had just time to turn and hit out. He was in the act of striking with a knife, and if I had been a second later he would probably have settled me. As it was I knocked him down and I fancy I stunned him. At any rate he did not move, so I walked on. Of course it may have been a mere vulgar attempt at murder and robbery, but from the fact that this man followed me for some considerable distance I should say it was not so, but a question of revenge. I don't know that anyone in Paris has any cause of quarrel with me, but the idea afterwards occurred to me that it might be that he took me for you. We are about the same height, and if he was watching the house he might, when I came out, mistake one for the other. Of course I have not a shadow of reason for supposing that you have an enemy, but at any rate I thought it as well to tell you about it, so that you might be on your guard, as I shall certainly be, in the future."
Arnold was silent for a minute.
"I should not be surprised if you are right, Hartington; they are a rough lot at Montmartre, and it is possible that I may, without knowing it, have rubbed some of them the wrong way. I suppose you did not notice what he was like?"
"No, it was too dark, and the whole affair too sudden for me to see anything of the features. He was in a blouse with the low cap workmen generally wear. I should say he stood four or five inches shorter than we do—about five feet eight or so. He was a square-built fellow. If you happen to come across him I fancy you may recognize him, not from my description but from my handiwork. You see," and he pointed to his right hand, which was wrapped up in an handkerchief, "I hit him hard and have cut two of my knuckles pretty badly—I fancyagainst his teeth. If so, I think it likely that two or three of them will be missing, and as a man of that sort is hardly likely to go at once to a dentist to have the gap filled up, it may prove a guide to you.