Part 24

He climbed over the steaming bricks and hurried into the rue de Tournon. On the corner a fire blazed, lighting up his own street, and on the bank wall, beneath a shattered gas lamp, a child was writing with a bit of cinder. “HERE FELL THE FIRST SHELL.” The letters stared him in the face. The rat-killer finished and stepped back to view his work, but catching sight of Trent’s bayonet, screamed and fled, and as Trent staggered across the shattered street, from holes and crannies in the ruins fierce women fled from their work of pillage, cursing him. At first he could not find his house, for the tears blinded him, but he felt along the wall and reached the door. A lantern burned in the concierge’s lodge and the old man lay dead beside it. Faint with fright he leaned a moment on his rifle, then, snatching the lantern, sprang up the stairs. He tried to call, but his tongue hardly moved. On the second floor he saw plaster on the stairway, and on the third the floor was torn and the concierge lay in a pool of blood across the landing. The next floor was his, _theirs_. The door hung from its hinges, the walls gaped. He crept in and sank down by the bed, and there two arms were flung around his neck, and a tear-stained face sought his own. “Sylvia!” “O Jack! Jack! Jack!” From the tumbled pillow beside them a child wailed. “They brought it; it is mine,” she sobbed. “Ours,” he whispered, with his arms around them both. Then from the stairs below came Braith’s anxious voice. “Trent! Is all well?” THE STREET OF OUR LADY OF THE FIELDS “Et tout les jours passés dans la tristesse Nous sont comptés comme des jours heureux!” I The street is not fashionable, neither is it shabby. It is a pariah among streets—a street without a Quarter. It is generally understood to lie outside the pale of the aristocratic Avenue de l’Observatoire. The students of the Montparnasse Quarter consider it swell and will have none of it. The Latin Quarter, from the Luxembourg, its northern frontier, sneers at its respectability and regards with disfavour the correctly costumed students who haunt it. Few strangers go into it. At times, however, the Latin Quarter students use it as a thoroughfare between the rue de Rennes and the Bullier, but except for that and the weekly afternoon visits of parents and guardians to the Convent near the rue Vavin, the street of Our Lady of the Fields is as quiet as a Passy boulevard. Perhaps the most respectable portion lies between the rue de la Grande Chaumière and the rue Vavin, at least this was the conclusion arrived at by the Reverend Joel Byram, as he rambled through it with Hastings in charge. To Hastings the street looked pleasant in the bright June weather, and he had begun to hope for its selection when the Reverend Byram shied violently at the cross on the Convent opposite. “Jesuits,” he muttered. “Well,” said Hastings wearily, “I imagine we won’t find anything better. You say yourself that vice is triumphant in Paris, and it seems to me that in every street we find Jesuits or something worse.” After a moment he repeated, “Or something worse, which of course I would not notice except for your kindness in warning me.” Dr. Byram sucked in his lips and looked about him. He was impressed by the evident respectability of the surroundings. Then frowning at the Convent he took Hastings’ arm and shuffled across the street to an iron gateway which bore the number 201 _bis_ painted in white on a blue ground. Below this was a notice printed in English: 1. For Porter please oppress once. 2. For Servant please oppress twice. 3. For Parlour please oppress thrice. Hastings touched the electric button three times, and they were ushered through the garden and into the parlour by a trim maid. The dining-room door, just beyond, was open, and from the table in plain view a stout woman hastily arose and came toward them. Hastings caught a glimpse of a young man with a big head and several snuffy old gentlemen at breakfast, before the door closed and the stout woman waddled into the room, bringing with her an aroma of coffee and a black poodle. “It ees a plaisir to you receive!” she cried. “Monsieur is Anglish? No? Americain? Off course. My pension it ees for Americains surtout. Here all spik Angleesh, c’est à dire, ze personnel; ze sairvants do spik, plus ou moins, a little. I am happy to have you comme pensionnaires—” “Madame,” began Dr. Byram, but was cut short again. “Ah, yess, I know, ah! mon Dieu! you do not spik Frainch but you have come to lairne! My husband does spik Frainch wiss ze pensionnaires. We have at ze moment a family Americaine who learn of my husband Frainch—” Here the poodle growled at Dr. Byram and was promptly cuffed by his mistress. “Veux tu!” she cried, with a slap, “veux tu! Oh! le vilain, oh! le vilain!” “Mais, madame,” said Hastings, smiling, “il n’a pas l’air très féroce.” The poodle fled, and his mistress cried, “Ah, ze accent charming! He does spik already Frainch like a Parisien young gentleman!” Then Dr. Byram managed to get in a word or two and gathered more or less information with regard to prices. “It ees a pension serieux; my clientèle ees of ze best, indeed a pension de famille where one ees at ’ome.” Then they went upstairs to examine Hastings’ future quarters, test the bed-springs and arrange for the weekly towel allowance. Dr. Byram appeared satisfied. Madame Marotte accompanied them to the door and rang for the maid, but as Hastings stepped out into the gravel walk, his guide and mentor paused a moment and fixed Madame with his watery eyes. “You understand,” he said, “that he is a youth of most careful bringing up, and his character and morals are without a stain. He is young and has never been abroad, never even seen a large city, and his parents have requested me, as an old family friend living in Paris, to see that he is placed under good influences. He is to study art, but on no account would his parents wish him to live in the Latin Quarter if they knew of the immorality which is rife there.” A sound like the click of a latch interrupted him and he raised his eyes, but not in time to see the maid slap the big-headed young man behind the parlour-door. Madame coughed, cast a deadly glance behind her and then beamed on Dr. Byram. “It ees well zat he come here. The pension more serious, il n’en existe pas, eet ees not any!” she announced with conviction. So, as there was nothing more to add, Dr. Byram joined Hastings at the gate. “I trust,” he said, eyeing the Convent, “that you will make no acquaintances among Jesuits!” Hastings looked at the Convent until a pretty girl passed before the gray façade, and then he looked at her. A young fellow with a paint-box and canvas came swinging along, stopped before the pretty girl, said something during a brief but vigorous handshake at which they both laughed, and he went his way, calling back, “À demain Valentine!” as in the same breath she cried, “À demain!” “Valentine,” thought Hastings, “what a quaint name;” and he started to follow the Reverend Joel Byram, who was shuffling towards the nearest tramway station. II “An’ you are pleas wiz Paris, Monsieur’ Astang?” demanded Madame Marotte the next morning as Hastings came into the breakfast-room of the pension, rosy from his plunge in the limited bath above. “I am sure I shall like it,” he replied, wondering at his own depression of spirits. The maid brought him coffee and rolls. He returned the vacant glance of the big-headed young man and acknowledged diffidently the salutes of the snuffy old gentlemen. He did not try to finish his coffee, and sat crumbling a roll, unconscious of the sympathetic glances of Madame Marotte, who had tact enough not to bother him. Presently a maid entered with a tray on which were balanced two bowls of chocolate, and the snuffy old gentlemen leered at her ankles. The maid deposited the chocolate at a table near the window and smiled at Hastings. Then a thin young lady, followed by her counterpart in all except years, marched into the room and took the table near the window. They were evidently American, but Hastings, if he expected any sign of recognition, was disappointed. To be ignored by compatriots intensified his depression. He fumbled with his knife and looked at his plate. The thin young lady was talkative enough. She was quite aware of Hastings’ presence, ready to be flattered if he looked at her, but on the other hand she felt her superiority, for she had been three weeks in Paris and he, it was easy to see, had not yet unpacked his steamer-trunk. Her conversation was complacent. She argued with her mother upon the relative merits of the Louvre and the Bon Marché, but her mother’s part of the discussion was mostly confined to the observation, “Why, Susie!” The snuffy old gentlemen had left the room in a body, outwardly polite and inwardly raging. They could not endure the Americans, who filled the room with their chatter. The big-headed young man looked after them with a knowing cough, murmuring, “Gay old birds!” “They look like bad old men, Mr. Bladen,” said the girl. To this Mr. Bladen smiled and said, “They’ve had their day,” in a tone which implied that he was now having his. “And that’s why they all have baggy eyes,” cried the girl. “I think it’s a shame for young gentlemen—” “Why, Susie!” said the mother, and the conversation lagged. After a while Mr. Bladen threw down the _Petit Journal_, which he daily studied at the expense of the house, and turning to Hastings, started to make himself agreeable. He began by saying, “I see you are American.” To this brilliant and original opening, Hastings, deadly homesick, replied gratefully, and the conversation was judiciously nourished by observations from Miss Susie Byng distinctly addressed to Mr. Bladen. In the course of events Miss Susie, forgetting to address herself exclusively to Mr. Bladen, and Hastings replying to her general question, the _entente cordiale_ was established, and Susie and her mother extended a protectorate over what was clearly neutral territory. “Mr. Hastings, you must not desert the pension every evening as Mr. Bladen does. Paris is an awful place for young gentlemen, and Mr. Bladen is a horrid cynic.” Mr. Bladen looked gratified. Hastings answered, “I shall be at the studio all day, and I imagine I shall be glad enough to come back at night.” Mr. Bladen, who, at a salary of fifteen dollars a week, acted as agent for the Pewly Manufacturing Company of Troy, N.Y., smiled a sceptical smile and withdrew to keep an appointment with a customer on the Boulevard Magenta. Hastings walked into the garden with Mrs. Byng and Susie, and, at their invitation, sat down in the shade before the iron gate. The chestnut trees still bore their fragrant spikes of pink and white, and the bees hummed among the roses, trellised on the white-walled house. A faint freshness was in the air. The watering carts moved up and down the street, and a clear stream bubbled over the spotless gutters of the rue de la Grande Chaumière. The sparrows were merry along the curb-stones, taking bath after bath in the water and ruffling their feathers with delight. In a walled garden across the street a pair of blackbirds whistled among the almond trees. Hastings swallowed the lump in his throat, for the song of the birds and the ripple of water in a Paris gutter brought back to him the sunny meadows of Millbrook. “That’s a blackbird,” observed Miss Byng; “see him there on the bush with pink blossoms. He’s all black except his bill, and that looks as if it had been dipped in an omelet, as some Frenchman says—” “Why, Susie!” said Mrs. Byng. “That garden belongs to a studio inhabited by two Americans,” continued the girl serenely, “and I often see them pass. They seem to need a great many models, mostly young and feminine—”