Cité Chatter

Par dela, ne dela la mer Ne s'jay dame ni damoiselle Qui soil en tous biens parfaits telle-- C'est un songe que d'y penser: Dieu! qu'il fait bon la regarder!'

ONE LOVELY MONDAY morning in late September, at about eleven or so, Taffy and the Laird sat in the studio--each opposite his picture, smoking, nursing his knee, and saying nothing. The heaviness of Monday weighed on their spirits more than usual, for the three friends had returned late on the previous night from a week spent at Barbizon and in the forest of Fontainebleau--a heavenly week among the painters; Rousseau, Millet, Corot, Daubigny, let us suppose, and others less known to fame this day. Little Billee, especially, had been fascinated by all this artistic life in blouses and sabots and immense straw hats and panamas, and had sworn to himself and to his friends that he would some day live and the there--painting the forest as it is, and peopling it with beautiful people out of his own fancy--leading a healthy outdoor life of simple wants and lofty aspirations.

At length Taffy said: 'Bother work this morning! I feel much more like a stroll in the Luxembourg Gardens and lunch at the Cafe de l'Odeon, where the omelets are good and the wine isn't blue.'

'The very thing I was thinking of myself,' said the Laird.

So Taffy slipped on his old shooting-jacket and his old Harrow cricket cap, with the peak turned the wrong way, and the Laird put on an old greatcoat of Taffy's that reached to his heels, and a battered straw hat they had found in the studio when they took it; and both sallied forth into the mellow sunshine on the way to Carrel's. For they meant to seduce Little Billee from his work, that he might share in their laziness, greediness, and general demoralisation.

And whom should they meet coming down the narrow turreted Rue Vielle des Trois Mauvais Ladres but Little Billee himself, with an air of general demoralisation so tragic that they were quite alarmed. He had his paint-box and field-easel in one hand and his little valise in the other. He was pale, his hat on the back of his head, his hair starting all at sixes and sevens, like a sick Scotch terrier's.

'Good Lord! what's the matter?' said Taffy.


'Good Lord! what's the matter?' said Taffy.

'Oh! oh! oh! she's sitting at Carrel's!'

'Who's sitting at Carrel's?'

'Trilby! sitting to all those ruffians! There she was, just as I opened the door; I saw her, I tell you! The sight of her was like a blow between the eyes, and I bolted! I shall never go back to that beastly hole again! I'm off to Barbizon, to paint the forest; I was corning round to tell you. Good-bye!...'

'Stop a minute--are you mad?' said Taffy, collaring him. 'Let me go, Taffy--let me go, damn it! I'll come back in a week--but I'm going now! Let me go; do you hear?' 'But look here--I'll go with you.'

'No; I want to be alone--quite alone. Let me go, I tell you!' 'I shan't let you go unless you swear to me, on your honour, that you'll write directly you get there, and every day till you come back. Swear!'

'All right; I swear--honour bright! Now there! Good-bye--good-bye; back on Sunday--good-bye!' And he was off.

'Now, what the devil does all that mean?' asked Taffy, much perturbed.

'I suppose he's shocked at seeing Trilby in that guise, or disguise, or unguise, sitting at Carrel's--he's such an odd little chap. And I must say, I'm surprised at Trilby. It's a bad thing for her when we're away. What could have induced her? She never sat in a studio of that kind before. I thought she only sat to Durien and old Carrel.'

They walked for a while in silence.

'Do you know, I've got a horrid idea that the little fool's in love with her!'

'I've long had a horrid idea that she's in love with him.'

'That would be a very stupid business,' said Taffy.

'He'll come back, I hope!' exclaimed the master.

And the incident gave rise to no further comment.