Grey Roses | Page 7

say for a little while I sat
vacantly staring at her, with an air of preoccupation. Anyhow, all at
once she laughed, and cried out, 'Well, when you get back...?' and,
'Perhaps,' she questioned, 'perhaps you think it polite to go off
wool-gathering like that?' Whereupon I recovered myself with a start,
and laughed too.
'But say that you are surprised, say that you 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 père! 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 Hôtel
d'Espagne, in the Rue de Médicis, 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 fiancés.' 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 passé 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