Grey Roses | Page 7

are glad, at least,' she went on.
Surprised! glad! But what did it mean? What was it all about?
'I couldn't stand it any longer, that's all. I have come home. Oh, que c'est bon, que c'est bon, que c'est bon!'
'And--England?--Yorkshire?--your people?'
'Don't speak of it. It was a bad dream. It is over. It brings bad luck to speak of bad dreams. I have forgotten it. I am here--in Paris--at home. Oh, que c'est bon!' And she smiled blissfully through eyes filled with tears.
Don't tell me that happiness is an illusion. It is her habit, if you will, to flee before us and elude us; but sometimes, sometimes we catch up with her, and can hold her for long moments warm against our hearts.
'Oh, mon p��re! It is enough--to be here, where he lived, where he worked, where he was happy,' Nina murmured afterwards.
She had arrived the night before; she had taken a room in the H?tel d'Espagne, in the Rue de M��dicis, opposite the Luxembourg Garden. I was as yet the only member of the old set she had looked up. Of course I knew where she had gone first--but not to cry--to kiss it--to place flowers on it. She could not cry--not now. She was too happy, happy, happy. Oh, to be back in Paris, her home, where she had lived with him, where every stick and stone was dear to her because of him!
Then, glancing up at the clock, with an abrupt change of key, 'Mais allons donc, paresseux! You must take me to see the camarades. You must take me to see Chalks.'
And in the street she put her arm through mine, laughing and saying, 'On nous croira fianc��s.' She did not walk, she tripped, she all but danced beside me, chattering joyously in alternate French and English. 'I could stop and kiss them all--the men, the women, the very pavement. Oh, Paris! Oh, these good, gay, kind Parisians! Look at the sky! Look at the view--down that impasse--the sunlight and shadows on the houses, the doorways, the people. Oh, the air! Oh, the smells! Que c'est bon--que je suis contente! Et dire que j'ai pass�� cinq mois, mais cinq grands mois, en Angleterre. Ah, veinard, you--you don't know how you're blessed.' Presently we found ourselves labouring knee-deep in a wave of black pinafores, and Nina had plucked her bunch of violets from her breast, and was dropping them amongst eager fingers and rosy cherubic smiles. And it was constantly, 'Tiens, there's Madame Chose in her kiosque. Bonjour, madame. Vous allez toujours bien?' and 'Oh, look! old Perronet standing before his shop in his shirt-sleeves, exactly as he has stood at this hour every day, winter or summer, these ten years. Bonjour, M'sieu Perronet.' And you may be sure that the kindly French Choses and Perronets returned her greetings with beaming faces. 'Ah, mademoiselle, que c'est bon de vous revoir ainsi. Que vous avez bonne mine!' 'It is so strange,' she said, 'to find nothing changed. To think that everything has gone on quietly in the usual way. As if I hadn't spent an eternity in exile!' And at the corner of one street, before a vast flaunting 'bazaar,' with a prodigality of tawdry Oriental wares exhibited on the pavement, and little black shopmen trailing like beetles in and out amongst them, 'Oh,' she cried, 'the "Mecque du Quartier"! To think that I could weep for joy at seeing the "Mecque du Quartier"!'
By and by we plunged into a dark hallway, climbed a long, unsavoury, corkscrew staircase, and knocked at a door. A gruff voice having answered, ''Trez!' we entered Chalks's bare, bleak, paint-smelling studio. He was working (from a lay-figure) with his back towards us; and he went on working for a minute or two after our arrival, without speaking. Then he demanded, in a sort of grunt, 'Eh bien, qu'est ce que c'est?' always without pausing in his work or looking round. Nina gave two little ahems, tense with suppressed mirth; and slowly, indifferently, Chalks turned an absent-minded face in our direction. But, next instant, there was a shout--a rush--a confusion of forms in the middle of the floor--and I realised that I was not the only one to be honoured by a kiss and an embrace. 'Oh, you're covering me with paint,' Nina protested suddenly; and indeed he had forgotten to drop his brush and palette, and great dabs of colour were clinging to her cloak. While he was doing penance, scrubbing the garment with rags soaked in turpentine, he kept shaking his head, and murmuring, from time to time, as he glanced up at her, 'Well, I'll be dumned.'
'It's very nice and polite of you, Chalks,' she said, by and by, 'a very graceful concession to my sex. But, if you think it would