ANOTHER GOOD MAN.

ANOTHER GOOD MAN.

Une conscience sans Dieu est un tribunal sans juge.—Lamartine.

I.

When Fradley came to Paris he renounced literature as a means of livelihood, for, although his success as a writer in “Brooklyn Babyhood,” had been pecuniarily satisfying, it occurred to him that painting might be less fatiguing than poetry, and he decided to adopt it as his profession.

His illustrations to his own rhymes had been, up to the present time, of archaic simplicity, and were limited to pen and ink productions representing infants afflicted with exaggerated eyes and eyelashes.

Young mothers hovered over the pages of “Brooklyn Babyhood” spelling out his rhymes to crowing infancy. In these jingles, children were told that they were “arch” and “cute,” they were assured of their importance, their every action was applauded, solid pages of baby-talk were administered, and baby-ridden Brooklyn writhed with delight.

There were some people, however, who revolted,—some who even declared that Fradley was a public nuisance and that his rhymes inculcated self-consciousness; but these people were probably unnatural parents.

When he wrote his immortal poem, “How many toes has the Baby?” the Brooklyn “Banner” published the poem in full with a portrait of and a peon to “Brooklyn’s Brilliant Son.”

This was all very well but it couldn’t last. A rival poet from Flatbush got hold of the Brooklyn “Star” and began a series of poems, the baby-talk of which made Fradley’s most earnest efforts fall flat. In vain he demanded to know the exact number of fingers and toes which the baby possessed; in vain he cooed and gurgled and bleated! The Flatbush poet was a woman, and she knew her business. When Fradley cooed, she cooed; when Fradley gurgled and bleated, she gurgled and bleated, backed up by the entire staff of the Brooklyn “Star.” In vain Fradley called for a counting of toes; she extended her researches into distant sections of baby’s anatomy, and Fradley was doomed. The last blow fell when the Flatbush poet produced

“BABY’S ICKLE TOOFY,”

which, translated freely, means “baby’s little tooth.” That settled it. Fickle Brooklyn fell down and worshipped the Flatbush lady, and Fradley sullenly packed his bag and sailed for France.

When Fradley took up his abode in the Latin Quarter, he expected that his arrival would create something of a stir. It did not. He waited a month for appreciation and finally asked Garland what he thought of his illustrations.

“I haven’t seen any,” replied Garland.

“I didn’t know you illustrated,” added Carrington, but noticing the mortification on Fradley’s face, said good-naturedly, “You know we don’t see much over here except the Paris papers; what do you illustrate for?”

Fradley was speechless.

“What paper are they in?” asked Garland, yawning innocently.

“In ‘Brooklyn Babyhood,’” snarled Fradley and left the café.

Carrington, a modest young Englishman with a high colour and blond moustache, looked troubled. Garland was irritated.

“You know,” he said to Carrington, “if he shows that sort of temper the older men will be down on him.”

“It’s very annoying,” said Carrington.

“Very. We new men have got to keep pretty quiet just now or the old men will make it hot for us. This man Fradley is enough to turn the whole studio against us. Did you make the fire this morning?”

“Oh, yes, of course. Clifford was very decent to me.”

“He’s all right, but there are some of the older men in Julian’s who are spoiling to discipline us. Did you notice it to-day?”

“I fancy I did,” replied Carrington, swallowing his beer.

“This man Fradley,” continued Garland, “is enough to queer the whole batch of this year’s men. Confound him, he’s effeminate.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Carrington pleasantly.

“Well, I do. His room is opposite mine, you know, and he’s trotting in and bothering me all the time about the decorations of his boudoir. Whew! Why, Carrington, he has tied ribbons all over his furniture, and he has tidies and things about so that you are afraid to sit down. I don’t want to misjudge the man, for we new men must hang together, but I draw the line at embroidered night shirts stuck all over with lace and ribbon.”

“So do I,” said Carrington, “does he do that sort of thing?”

“I suppose so. He brought one in to show me.”

“Maybe it wasn’t his,” suggested Carrington.

“Possibly not. It would have been more appropriate for the Queen of Sheba.”

II.

“Don’t,” said Clifford, “pat me on the back and tell me to keep my shirt on!”

“Nonsense!” said Elliott, “you are making a mountain out of a mole-hill!”

“And your language,” said Selby, “is not exactly—”

“Oh, isn’t it! Now you listen to me; the Café des Écoles is no boudoir, and if a man can’t express his views here then I’m a fossil.”

Rowden looked vaguely uneasy and Braith studied Clifford over his pipe.

“The Quarter,” continued Clifford, “is going to the devil; do you deny it?”

“Yes,” said Elliott cheerfully.

“That makes no difference—keep cool, Elliott, I know you only said it for argument, but it isn’t so—”

“Messieurs, you must make less noise,” said the proprietor, hurrying over from the desk.

“Stop pounding on the table and yelling,” said Clifford to Carroll.

“If you don’t,” observed Elliott, “the sergot will come back and take our names again—”

“For the last time too, and Elliott’s already got three, so he’ll go to the cooler and devil a sou will I go bail,” growled Clifford; “now listen to me, you fellows, if you want to know why the Quarter is going to the bow-wows. Just look at the crop of this year’s men! Are we going to put up with McCloud. He threw the proprietor of the Café des Arts out of doors and ran the Café himself at ruinous rates until the proprietor came back with the police. I paid his fine.”

“Well,” said Elliott, “McCloud is certainly cocky for a nouveau!”

“Cocky? Well rather. Because he’s a sort of infant Hercules and has played on the Australian team is no reason why he should split all the tables with his fist and do cheap feats of strength, and grab a cab by the hind wheels and hold it with the cabby yelling like a demon and everybody laughing at me—”

“You!”

“I was in the cab; it was on the Boulevard Montparnasse—”

“And you were going—” began Elliott.

“Never mind where I was going,” said Clifford with dignity, “the fact remains that I was inside. It was lucky for McCloud that I was, for when a policeman nipped his budding humour my bail came in very handy.”

“And is that,” inquired Braith suavely, “the ground for your assertion that the Quarter is doomed?”

“Isn’t it enough?” demanded Clifford;—“a nouveau taking liberties,—making me ridiculous before the whole Montparnasse Quarter,—who know me—every one of them,—and to crown all, being with a lady—”

“Oh!” said Elliott tenderly. Osborne smirked and whistled the devil’s quadrille, Elliott and Thaxton played phantom trombones with enervating effect and Carroll beat madly upon a bottle.

Clifford became redder and redder. His unrequited affection for that wonderful little creature, the new Bullier star, was a topic for mirth and gentle jest throughout the Latin Quarter. They had recently parted, friends,—it being understood that she liked him, but hardly cared to pin her affections to a man who sat helpless in a cab while somebody held the hind wheels and the boulevard laughed. It was putting it plainly perhaps, but it did no harm, and Clifford was very careful to keep it to himself.

“You fellows,” observed Clifford scornfully, “had better stop those monkey shines. Put down that bottle, Carroll, or I’ll take it away. You’ll be trying to stuff it in your mouth next. Bite on the cork, it’s better for teething.”

This cruel thrust at the very recent advent of Carroll to full-fledged honours in the studio had its effect.

“I know,” continued Clifford, “that you all think I’m blighted, but you’re all mistaken. I’m sure you will see that I am right about these new men when I tell you what happened at the studio this morning. I sat down in a front place and waited for the roll-call, and, before my name was called, a thing—a nouveau took the place himself.”

“What!” cried the others incredulously.

“It’s true,” continued Clifford, “this baby—this nouveau violated all precedent, and, because his name came before mine on the list, he actually had the impudence to throw me down!”

The others looked thoughtful.

“That is going too far,” observed Elliott gravely, “we must discipline these young gentlemen.”

“There are two or three,” said Thaxton, “who seem worse than the rest, for instance, young Garland—”

“Seems to me that was the creature’s name who took my place,” interrupted Clifford.

“It couldn’t be—he’s a decent fellow and makes the fire when he’s told to,” said Selby.

“Perhaps he didn’t know you were an old man,” suggested Elliott.

“Probably not,” said Carroll, who was still smarting from the teething taunt, “Clifford hasn’t been twice in the studio since the nouveaux came.”

Elliott took out a note-book and wrote down Garland’s name.

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” he said, “but there is another little wretch who ought to have an example made of him at once.”

“Who?” asked Clifford.

“I believe his name is Fradley,” replied Elliott lighting a cigar.

“Then we’ll fix Fradley,” muttered Clifford. “Who cares for a game of billiards?”

III.

The roll-call was over at Julian’s and every place had been marked in white chalk on the floor. The model in the first studio had profited by the confusion attendant on the distribution of bread, colours and canvasses, and, shuffling into his trousers and slippers, strolled into the second studio of Boulanger and Lefevre to investigate the cause of the uproar which had arisen and which continued with increasing violence.

The studio was packed with yelling students, some mounted on tabourets, some on the old dust-chest by the door, others on the stove and model-stand. From Doucet’s two studios a delegation had arrived, all of the Sculptors and most of Bouguereau’s men were there, and the noise was terrific. A big blond fellow wearing the uniform of a cuirassier seemed to be directing things, and his bellows shook the windows and rattled the bones on “Pierre,” the battered studio skeleton.

The clerk came in and remonstrated, but Clifford put him out and locked the glass door, leaving him gesticulating and taking names as fast as he could write. Then Jules peeped in, smiled sadly and beckoned to Boissy, the cuirassier massier. Boissy opened the door and explained that they were only “organising.” That was sufficient, and Jules and the clerk withdrew.

When the classic halls of Julian’s echoed with demoniac screams, cat-calls, and howls—when voices were uplifted in every language except German, and the thickets of easels were mowed down in rows by some playful boot-heel, it was generally an indication that the students were “organising.” They had a passion for organising, and they seldom failed to indulge it. Just now they were organising under the leadership of that strange creature, Sara, also known as “La Rousse,” who was generally the root of all mischief in the Quarter. She stood on the model-stand beside Boissy, her fiery red hair coiled along her neck, her wonderful white skin glistening, her mysterious face bathed in the sunshine which streamed down from the glass roof above.

With an inscrutable smile she studied the massed faces below her. Occasionally her eyes rested on some new man, who never failed to feel uncomfortable and look at the floor until the grayish-green eyes swept in another direction. Sara was haughty at best. In her sunniest smiles lurked the lightning of scorn, and in all her brief “affairs,” the caprice of passion never disturbed her astounding egotism, never lowered the imperious head, never drove the shadow of irony from her scarlet lips.

Boissy shouted for silence, and banged on the floor with his spurred heels, but nobody paid attention until the girl took a step forward and held up both pink palms as if to shield her ears from the pandemonium. That was sufficient.

Then with a nod to Boissy, who straightened his epaulettes and looked fierce, she began very quietly.

“Messieurs il s’agit—” when an unlucky nouveau fell off a stool and crashed to the floor carrying several easels with him. He was mobbed at once amid cries of “Silence, cochon! Down with the Nouveau! Vive Sara!”

“C’est épatant,” observed Sara with superb scorn, “fiche moi cet nouveau au clou!”

No sooner said than the unlucky youth was seized and hustled toward the dust-chest amid cries of “au clou! au clou!”

Elliott opened the lid of the dust-chest and looked at Boissy.

“What’s his name,” growled Boissy.

“Freddie Fradley,” replied Elliott, “shall he go in?”

Fradley screamed and struggled, but at a sign from Sara they shoved him in, and, inserting some mahl-sticks under the lid to give him air, requested “Fatty” Carriere to sit on the top, which he did with alacrity. Sara tossed her glittering hair and continued, undeterred by the faint screams from the chest:

“Messieurs, you all know that on the night of the Mi-Carême, it is the custom of our studio to go en masse, to the Bullier. Messieurs, the massiers of all the studios have decided to honour me with an escort, but—” laughing proudly, “that is the difficulty! All of you wish to go with me, which you know very well is impossible. Are there not other girls in the Quarter?”

“No!” shouted the students in a spasm of gallantry.

She opened her arms with a peculiarly graceful motion. “You know that I adore you all,—all the Julian men, and I do not wish to show favouritism—”

“Vive Sara! Vive la Rousse!” came thundering from the students and was echoed by stifled yells from the dust-chest.

“Fatty” Carriere banged on the lid and uttered awful threats against Fradley’s health unless he ceased. Sara smiled. “No, no favouritism,” she said—“mais—mais comment faire?”

“Take us all as escorts!” cried Clifford, and the Frenchmen understood and took up the cry—“en choisisez pas! nous voulons aller tous!”

The girl’s eyes sparkled, and she shook her head at Clifford. “Monsieur the incorrigible!”

Clifford waved his hat and cried,—“C’est entendu alors! Vive Sara!”

“Mais non, mon petit Clifford,” smiled the girl, “c’est impossible—”

“Not at all,” exclaimed Boissy with a reckless laugh, “Clifford and I—we will arrange that!”

“Of course,” replied Clifford, “we’ll fix the police.”

Then bedlam broke loose, and impromptu quadrilles began, and “Fatty” Carriere, unwilling to lose his share of the dance, hastily locked the chest, punched some air-holes in the lid, oblivious of the danger which Fradley would run if anybody sat down on them, and went lumbering and gyrating about until his elephantine gambols shook the building.

Shortly afterward, the fatherly Monsieur Julian appeared, softly suggesting that work should begin, and ten minutes later the seats were full, the models posed in the various rooms, and the scrape of charcoal and palette knife alone broke the quiet of the studio.

Clifford, who had missed the morning roll-call, roamed about looking for a place. There appeared to be none. The lines of easels radiating in circles from the model-stand were all occupied. He glared at the nouveaux.

“This is disgusting,” he observed to Elliott, “fancy a four-year man hunting a place and those fool nouveaux squatting on the tabourets!”

“Come in time,—it’s the only way now,” replied Elliott.

“Here is a place, Mr. Clifford,” said Garland who was sitting in the front row. Clifford threaded his way among the easels to his side.

“It’s very good of you,” he said; “whose name is that on the floor?”

“Fradley’s,” said Garland. Clifford rubbed it out and substituted his own signature.

“This begins Fradley’s discipline,” he muttered, and called to Ciceri to bring him his portfolio. Then he looked at Garland and was prepossessed in his favor.

“You’re a nouveau, are you not?” he asked amiably; “what is your name?”

“Garland.”

“Mine is Clifford.”

“Oh, we all know that,” laughed Garland.

“Oh, you do!” said Clifford, “and how the devil do you know it?”

Garland did not think it prudent to mention the cab incident, and Clifford picked up his charcoal and squinted at the model.

“I hear,” said Garland, “that you older men are going to discipline us.”

“We are,” said Clifford calmly.

“Why?”

“Well, you see, we usually receive a certain amount of respect and deference from new men, and before you fellows came nobody ever heard of a nouveau turning an old man out of his seat.”

Carrington looked up from his easel. “I am a nouveau,” he said, “and I think, Mr. Clifford, you will find that the nouveaux respect the traditions of the studio.”

“I think so, too,” insisted Garland.

Clifford looked at him coldly. “Didn’t you turn me out last week?” he demanded.

“I,” cried Garland, “never!”

“Fradley did,” said Cary, “and I noticed it at the time and wondered why you didn’t spank him, Clifford.”

“Well, by Jove!” exclaimed Clifford, “I thought it was you, Garland.”

“I know you did,” replied Garland indignantly, “and a pretty life I’ve led with Rowden and Elliott and all the concour men making it hot for me. I respect the traditions and always will.”

“Then I beg your pardon,” said Clifford cordially, “come and see me at my studio.”

All the nouveaux knew what that meant. It indicated that Garland would soon be released from menial work, and would find himself in the charmed circle of the powers that be.

“By the way,” said Clifford, “there is that fellow Fradley in the dust-chest. Hadn’t I better let him out?”

“Has he enough air?” asked Selby.

“Plenty. I bored some more holes just now and asked him how he felt. He said I was no gentleman.”

“He says,” said Rowden, “that it’s a disgrace to his family and a blot on his honour. He’s an excitable customer and screams like a cat when addressed through the air-holes in the lid.”

“Oh, let him out,” said Clifford.

“No, he must be taught decency. He’s been here three months, and that’s long enough for the studio to size him up.”

“Why did you put him in?” asked Garland.

“Because,” replied Elliott, “he made a racket trying to go out when Sara was speaking.”

“He couldn’t help it, he fell off the stool; let him out,” said Clifford.

“No, he must understand that this studio won’t tolerate a sneak. Did you know that he went to old Julian with tales of our doings and said that for his part he never met such a rude and vulgar set of men before? He said he had not come to Paris to listen to models make speeches, but had expected to find a refined and elevating art atmosphere. He insisted that he could not draw if the studio was noisy, and he asked old Julian to stop the racket. Fancy the expression on Julian’s face!”

Clifford’s face was a study. “What impudence,” he said, “what did Julian do?”

“He? Oh, he told him that he was not obliged to stay; that there were other schools in Paris.”

Clifford turned to his drawing and shrugged his shoulders. “Let him sit in the box then,” he muttered, steadying his plumb line with the end of his pencil; “dust-chest discipline won’t hurt him!”

Clifford was a clever draughtsman. The nouveaux watched him in respectful admiration as he constructed his study, indicated a shadow here and there, and then, dusting the paper, rapidly sketched in the essential outlines and began to model the head with a vigour and dash which did not at all detract from its value as a serious academic study.

Mid-day struck, and there was a scramble for hats and a rush for the stairs. Bouguereau’s men came trampling out of their atelier with the studio band at their head and the studio mascot, a pale-eyed goat named “Tapage,” bringing up the rear. Following Bouguereau’s atelier came Doucet’s two rooms and behind them Chapu’s sculptors. The stairs were jammed, and as Clifford was in a hurry to get his luncheon, he persuaded “Tapage” to butt the passage clear, which the goat was only too glad to do, for he smelled the appetising odour of brown paper and cabbage leaves in the court below.

When Clifford had reached the restaurant on the corner of the boulevard he remembered that Fradley was still in the dust-bin. “The deuce!” he muttered, “I’ve got to go back and let the beggar out!”

Sara, who had been posing in the second studio for the concour men had also forgotten Fradley, and it was only when she had finished dressing and stood alone in the studio twisting up her burnished tresses, that a rustling in the dust-chest behind her recalled Fradley’s existence to her mind.

“B’en vrai!” she exclaimed, “I forgot you, my friend!” and she stooped and drawing the bolt, lifted the heavy lid. Fradley was squatting in a corner of the chest.

“Ah! mais ça—c’est trop fort!” she cried in self-reproach; “I am so sorry.”

Fradley snarled.

The girl looked at him curiously for a moment and then began to laugh. “To think that we all should have forgotten you, my poor friend! I shall scold Boissy and Clifford—oh—they shall catch it! Do you know you are very dusty?”

Fradley arose and surveyed his cuffs. Then he turned to the mirror and grew giddy with rage. His long, artistically arranged hair was full of straws, and his thin egotistical features bore little resemblance to Byron’s at twenty, which he was confident they did when not smeared with soot.

“The rude, ungentlemanly creatures! The horrid brutes!” he cried. “I will complain to Julian, I will have them dismissed—”

“Comment?” said the girl.

Then Fradley plunged into the French language.

“Vooly voo donny moi—er—a—rest, or vooly voo pas! Je swee tray fachy,—er—er—tray, tray fachy!”

“You are angry? Mais mon petit, tu as raison!”

Fradley eyed her with animosity. “C’est votre faut!” he said; “Je dirais Musseer Julian toot sweet!”

“Comment?” inquired Sara.

“Wee! Wee!” he said with a venomous glance at her, “vooz avvy mis moi dans cette boite!” She did not understand his accusation, but she laughed wickedly and marched straight up to him. Before he knew what she was about she had deliberately thrown her arms about his neck and kissed him.

“There,” she said calmly, “we must not be enemies, mon petit; now I forgive you for making a racket when I was trying to speak, and you may tell the whole atelier that Sara has kissed you.” Then with an imperious nod she marched out of the studio leaving Fradley petrified.

A few moments later Clifford came in and found him still motionless, gaping vacantly.

“Oh, you’re out, eh?” said Clifford. Fradley paid no attention to this salute, but stared at the door through which Sara had disappeared.

Clifford eyed him for a moment and then sat down on the chest.

“Fradley,” he said, “you listen to me and I’ll give you a pointer or two concerning this studio. Be manly and you’ll get along. Don’t kick against tradition. Better men than either of us have conformed to the customs here and filled the stove and searched for the ‘grand reflecteur’ on dark days.”

He looked hard at Fradley. “You had better conform to custom or go somewhere else. We seldom haze here,—we never haze a manly man, and if you know anything about the École des Beaux Arts you will appreciate what I say.”

Fradley was looking at him, but something in his eyes told Clifford he was not listening.

Then Clifford rose, disgusted, and swung out through the hall and down the stairs, leaving Fradley in an imbecile trance.

IV.

Fradley had delicate tastes. His rooms were hung with pale green draperies, tidies lay on every divan, and his initials were embroidered on his pillow shams. He worked very little at the studio.

“It is not necessary,” he told Garland; “mere painting doesn’t make an artist,—it’s experience; an artist must be broad!” So Fradley began the process of broadening by going to theatres, concerts, exhibitions and museums. He also presented letters of introduction to families who maintained nourishing tables. There was one thing about him that Garland could not understand. Fradley was thin, very thin, but he ate ravenously, and Garland, eyeing him from his meagre face to his spindle shanks, wondered why he did not grow stouter.

“It’s most extraordinary,” he said to Carrington, “the fellow eats like a pig and grows thin on it. It’s very disagreeable to me. I wish he’d stop coming in here every evening.”

“You’re too severe on him,” said Carrington.

“I am? Well just wait until he begins visiting you with a roll of manuscript poems to read. By Jove, he nearly drives me idiotic!”

“Oh, he’s a very decent fellow,” said Carrington; “he’s a man of splendid morals—”

“—According to himself,” said Garland. “Since he arrived in the Quarter he has not missed an evening in telling us how he scorns the immoral students of this immoral Quarter, and how innocent and pure he is himself. I take no stock in that sort of thing. You and I are morally decent, but we don’t sound trumpets on that account.”

Carrington was silent for a moment, then he said diffidently; “I’m rather sorry for him; he isn’t popular, you know. I think we ought to be friendly to him.”

“It’s his own fault that he is unpopular.”

“Perhaps so; anyway I might as well tell you that he asked us to come to see him to-night. I accepted.”

“Good heavens,” groaned Garland, “he’s sure to read us a poem.”

“What of it?”

“Oh, I can stand it if you can. I’m tired and cross, but if you have accepted that settles it.”

“It’s nine o’clock,” said Carrington, glancing at his watch, “we might as well go now and get away early. I’m dead tired myself. Come on, old chap, and face the music. We nouveaux should stick together!”

“You’re d——n democratic for an aristocrat,” laughed Garland, following him across the hallway to Fradley’s door. They found Fradley sitting before the piano. He could not play the piano, but he had an enervating habit of striking single notes with one finger which filled Garland with murderous inclinations.

“Ah!” said Fradley in affected surprise, “Garland?—and Lord Ronald Carrington—”

“How are you, Fradley,” said Carrington hastily, “trot out your verses, for Garland and I are going to sport our oak directly—we’re dead beat from the studio concour.”

Carrington had worked modestly in the Quarter for months, living under his name of Carrington with no prefix, for he hated notoriety and fuss, and was perfectly aware that a fuss would be made over him if people discovered him to be identical with the young Lord Carrington who led his company so gallantly in Burmah, He had resigned from the service to study art, and he worked hard and faithfully to make up for lack of ability. It took Fradley to discover his title and identity and, much to Carrington’s chagrin, he spread the glad news and fell down and worshipped.

“Come,” said Garland, “let’s hear your verses. Got anything to smoke?”

“You may smoke,” murmured Fradley, in a trance before Carrington, “for Lord Carrington smokes—”

“For goodness, sake call me Carrington,” said Ronald, “and give us some tobacco will you?”

Fradley produced his tobacco and then began to glide about the room tidying things, arranging knick-knacks, dusting albums, until Garland shuddered.

“Come, Fradley,” he said, as amiably as he could, “trot out your grog and poetry and let’s get to bed. You know we only have to-morrow on the concour and we must get up early.”

Fradley tripped over to the piano, found his manuscript, tripped back again to the fireplace, sat down, throwing one lank leg over the other, and coughed gently.

“It’s only a trifle—a little thing I finished to-night. Let me read it to you.”

Garland, aghast at the bulky manuscript, lighted a cigar and gave himself up to gloom. Carrington settled back in his chair and determined to enjoy it.

“It is entitled, ‘The Kiss of Sin,’” observed Fradley.

“Oh, fin-de-siècle?” inquired Carrington.

“I thought you were opposed to immorality,” said Garland.

“This is moral!” gasped Fradley, “do you think I would—”

“No—no! go on, old fellow,” said Carrington.

“For Heaven’s sake,” muttered Garland.

Then with a smile the poet began:

“Now is that immoral?” asked Fradley.

Ronald was dozing, eyes wide open.

“No,” said Garland, “that’s harmless; go on,” and he curled himself up in the arm-chair and thought of Sara La Rousse. The poem was in cantos and they were numerous. Some cantos were tearful, some tempestuous. Many paid beautiful tribute to temperance, such as the verse beginning:

A little further along, Fradley’s morals tottered, for the lines,

were almost immediately followed by:

“I thought you said you gave her the shake!” interrupted Garland querulously. Carrington woke up at the same moment and looked terribly ashamed of himself.

“Very charming,” he murmured, “it’s about Sara, isn’t it?”

Fradley blushed. “Oh, no—er—it’s only a poetic fancy.”

“Any red-headed girl—eh?” said Garland rising; “well, I am awfully obliged to you,—we’ll have the rest of it soon I hope—come along, Ronald.”

Fradley accompanied them to the door.

“Are you going to that—that orgie at the Bal Bullier on Mi-Carême?” he asked.

“I am,” said Garland.

“Are you?” he asked of Carrington.

“Oh, yes, I suppose so; everybody else is going.”

“And do you think it right?”

“No—it’s not decent; you would not enjoy it,” said Garland with a malicious smile. “Don’t go.”

“I don’t know—I don’t know,” murmured Fradley; “an artist must be broad—”

“Especially when he’s abroad—”

“Oh, come on!” grumbled Carrington,—“good night, Fradley, awfully obliged you know.”

The poet entered his boudoir and lighting a wax candle looked at himself in the mirror. He smoothed his love-locks, touched his lips with glycerine, and crawling into an embroidered night-shirt sank languidly upon the bed, pulling the silken coverlet over his ears. Then he began to think of Sara.

V.

From the Seine to the Bullier, the Boulevard St. Michel lay glistening under the frosty stars. On the fountain in the Place St. Michel, the iron griffins which spat water all summer into the basin below, sat grim and helpless, jaws and claws bound in chains of ice. Above them victorious St. Michel lifted the flat of his sword to spank a prostrate Satan whose nether limbs were now mercifully padded with snow.

The Boulevard, packed from gutter to gutter, echoed with the fanfare of Carnival. Cabs crowded along five deep; tram-cars and omnibuses wheezed and tooted and ploughed their way through the constantly increasing throngs.

With mask and horn and mirliton the crowd swept through the boulevard, while from the terraces and windows of every café, students sprawled, and shouted and chanted strange anthems to celebrate the Mi-Carême.

The Café Vachette was festooned with gas jets, the Café de la Source glowed under clusters of electric globes, the Cafés d’Harcourt and Rouge were ablaze with lanterns and electricity, and the ice-covered fountain in the Place de Medici flashed back from its crystalline basin a million sparkling rays of blue and gold. On top of the hill the Bullier rose terraced with coloured lamps, bathed in a flood of electric light, which traced a trembling network of shadows over the asphalt among the trees of the Avenue de L’Observatoire. And among the shadows which the branches flung across the parkway, partly concealed by the terrace of the café which forms the angle of the avenue, a figure, enveloped in a sealskin overcoat, shivered and peered across the square to where the frivolous and godless were pouring along the sidewalk to the Bullier. On they swept, with horn and song and the rattle of canes on bench and shutter; and past them dashed cab after cab, halting for an instant at the entrance, while visions of light draperies and lighter feet sped across the foyer to the cloak-room. Now a band of architects arrived, chanting the slogan of Lalou, now a masked company of artists in blouse and béret, locking arms with a dozen of the gentler sex. At times the throng closed about some favourite who immediately mounted a boulevard bench to harangue them on the evil of being serious.

The figure in the sealskin overcoat appeared to be interested, and ventured a little way along the square, but was almost immediately frightened back by the voice of a compatriot, inebriated but melodious;

It was Arizona.

here memory proved treacherous, and, after several attempts to recall the fate of the abandoned one, Arizona jerked a large felt hat over one eye, squared his shoulders, advanced his lower jaw and began to yell. “Come an’ pick up the dead—aw! Come an’ rescue the dyin’! It’s my night to howl, an’ a souvenir goes with each an’ every corpse!”

Across the square somebody in the crowd shouted: “Arizona, shut up!”

“W’as that?” demanded Arizona indignantly; and, encircling a tree with one arm, he started the other in a rapid rotary motion increasing in velocity until it looked like an extinct Catherine-wheel.

“What’s the matter, Arizona?” asked Garland who came running across the street; “you know you mustn’t yell like that in English.”

“A souvenir goes with each corpse,” said Arizona sullenly, “I’m a pitiless wolf—”

“You’re a pitiful ass,” said Clifford, coming up, “whom are you scrapping with now?”

“If I find him I’ll jump on to his neck,” said Arizona sulkily.

“He means Fradley,” said Elliott to Clifford, “he’s jealous because Sara forbade him to assault Fradley.”

The figure in the sealskin coat shuddered behind his tree.

“Arizona, my son,” said Clifford, “you’re a nouveau yet, and you’d better not make yourself too conspicuous. You’re drunk too, and if I catch you trying to get into the Bullier I’ll settle with you in a way you’ll remember. Give me that six-shooter—quick. Now don’t try any of your cheap cow-boy humor in the Latin Quarter. Go home.”

“Look yere, Clifford,” said Arizona, “I’m a noovo but I ain’t no slouch, an’ you fellows never have to tell me to be less fresh. Now I—hic!—I objec’ to Fradley chasin’ Sara—”

“You have no claims on Sara,” said Elliott laughing.

“All right, then I hain’t, but I objec’ to that fool-hen Fradley scratchin’ alkali in my sage-bush. Mebbe Sara ain’t my business; but I’m doin’ dooty about thet there public claim, an’ I’m death on jumpers like him!”

At that moment the uproar on the boulevard was redoubled. A battalion of singing students, each clad in evening dress over which was draped a white blouse, was advancing from the Boulevard Montparnasse.

“Come on, Garland,—Arizona, go home!” said Clifford, and he hurried across the square to join the procession, followed by Elliott and Garland.

In the middle of the procession, enthroned upon the roof of a cab sat Sara. She was engaged in exploding squibs while Boissy held the terrified horse down to a sideway prance. Behind the cab marched Julian’s young hopefuls, singing “Le Bal à l’Hôtel-de-Ville.” Sara fired a whole bunch of squibs as the cab came to a halt before the statue of Marshal Ney, then, as it moved on into the flare of light, a mighty shout arose; “Vive Sara!” to which that young person politely replied, “Vive l’atelier Julien!”

A moment later Sara and her cohorts were engulfed in the throng passing through the foyer of the Bal Bullier.

Half an hour later, Arizona appeared at the box office and charged in with a whoop which raised the hair under the silver helmet of the cavalryman on guard. It was, however, nearly twelve o’clock when Fradley, his eyes bulging with fright, sidled into the lobby, bought his ticket and sought the den of the female harpies who take checks for wraps. He slipped the sealskin overcoat from his meagre frame, and a harpy grabbed it. He hurriedly thrust the zinc check into his pocket, smoothed his love-locks and tripped timidly to the head of the stairs which leads down to the floor of the ballroom. Here a coarse red-necked man relieved him of his ticket, and he stood face to face with the gilded demon—Vice! For a moment he thought of flight; then something on the floor below made him blush violently.

“Get out of the way! You’re blocking the stairs!” shouted the red-necked man, but Fradley did not hear him in the din. Then a brutal cavalryman seized Fradley and hustled him down the stairs.

“Stop!” screamed the poet, but somebody in the crowd below caught him by the leg. It was a fearful struggle. The red-necked man vociferated, the soldier pushed and the masked figure below hauled away at his feet. Fradley felt he was losing consciousness; the scene swam before him. For one awful moment he saw, in the gaudy surging masses below, the glittering pit of hell—his ears were stunned by the crash of demoniac music,—then something gave way, the soldier snickered, and Fradley found himself jerked headlong into the gulf, only to be caught in the arms of a stalwart personage wearing a false nose and a tin crown over one ear.

“Welcome to Pandemonium!” yelled the crowned personage, as he banged Fradley over the head with a bladder; “and may I ask, Monsieur, if you generally come into a Royal Presence on your head?”

Before Fradley could reply, a Nautch Girl caught him around the neck and swung him into the crush of dancers. He struggled violently.

“What! you won’t dance?” she cried, with a stamp of her bangled sandals.

“No, I won’t!” cried Fradley, perspiring with terror.

“You shall!” she insisted.

Then a clown with his face all white, came squealing and tumbling along, neatly floored him in an unexpected flip-flap, picked him up, and laying his chalky face on his shoulder, shrieked and sobbed, “oh, mon frère! mon frère!” This was the last straw. With a wrench and a twist he freed himself and fled to the gallery, where he found a vacant table and sat down to collect his thoughts. Little by little his fright gave way to anger. A waiter dusted the chalk from his coat and told him that there was a mirror behind the musicians’ box. Here he smoothed his hair and rebuttoned his collar, keeping a suspicious eye on two young ladies of the ballet who were practising strange steps before an adjoining mirror.

“Monsieur,” said one of them, “have the goodness to tell me whether I do the ‘grand écart,’ as well as ‘La Goulu.’”

“What is the ‘grand écart’?” asked Fradley stiffly.

He was instructed, and he withdrew in haste to his table in the gallery.

A quadrille was in progress below. He stood on his chair to see and then sat down again, not to see. This manœuvre he repeated at intervals and ended by remaining on his chair, “For,” he argued, “it’s life,—and an artist must be broad.”

Before the quadrille ended, he was playfully toppled from his chair by a Spanish dancer, who took his place and offered to reward him with a kiss which he refused. After awhile the dancer skipped off with an Arab, and a feeling akin to loneliness took possession of Fradley.

The dull red and blue woodwork of the Bullier was hung with the banners of all nations. In the musicians’ gallery, Conor and his orchestra banged away at the “March into Hell,” and the tables trembled with the crash of the brass. The floor was crowded to suffocation. Imbecile shrieking clowns in ruffles and powder, went madly bounding about, Turks footed it with Russian peasant girls, gendarmes wearing false noses and enormous moustaches locked arms with “ces messieurs” of the Vilette who wore the charming costume of that quarter including “favoris” and “rouflaquettes.” Students in evening dress galloped about playing circus, and a pretty Cupid, mounted on one young gentleman’s shoulders, challenged a shepherdess, mounted on another, to a race, so away they went, crying “Allons! houp! houp!” From a near corner a monotonous chanting arose, where some thirty students were squatting in a ring beating upon drums with their hands. It was the rhythmic air of an Egyptian dance which was being executed in the middle by a willowy white-veiled girl who swung two gilded scimitars. Like sheet lightning the broad blades of the swords flashed above the silver-flecked veil, as her slender, supple figure swayed to the music.

“Brava! Bis! Bis!” they cried, and the girl, with eyes like stars above her veil, whirled the scimitars into circles of flame. Suddenly she stood rigid, there came a clash of steel, the swords lay crossed before her, and, as the minor air swelled out, she whipped off her veil and sent it floating and billowing above her head while her little feet began to move to and fro among the swords, blade upward on the floor. The applause was deafening as she tossed back her head and said with the merriest laugh, “Je veux bien boire un bock!”

Clifford jumped up from the floor and picking up the swords presented them on one knee.

“Tiens! c’est toi, mon ami?”

“Yes. Forgive me the cab, Cécile,” he murmured, drawing her half resisting arm through his.

“I can’t forgive you. It was too ridiculous to sit there,—and somebody holding the hind wheels.”

“Oh, Cécile—”

“No—no!”

“Ma petite Cécile—”

“By Jove, she’s going to forgive him,” said Elliott to Rowden who was dancing attendance on the pretty Cupid.

“Mr. Rowden, I insist,” pouted the Cupid, shaking her curls.

“But I don’t enjoy playing circus,” pleaded Rowden, as Boissy pranced proudly by, his epaulettes over his ears, bearing Sara as Diana, who prodded him on with a silver-gilt arrow.

Then Cupid became petulant and signified her intention of seeking another steed, and presently Elliott became the pleased spectator of his friend careering about in company with similarly burdened youths.

“I’m not in it,” sighed Elliott, until he spied Margot, who stamped her foot and called for a steed. Shortly afterwards he joined the rest in feats of the haut-école.

To say that Fradley was enjoying himself is not strictly true. Once every ten minutes he subdued some bound of a tortured conscience with the thought; “artists must be broad;” but except for these encounters with his doubts he found it all secretly thrilling and pleasant. He was lonely, in a way, yet he hardly knew what he would want of company. As for speaking to any of those bright-eyed young persons who now and then slapped his face with a rose or rattled a tambourine over his hat,—that was out of the question. No, indeed! He would look on, “because an artist must be broad,” but he had no desire to contaminate himself with a word or a smile from such as they. No, indeed! No! No! There seemed to be some need of repeating this frequently to himself, but curiously enough it did not assuage his loneliness. Once a black-eyed Mephistopheles poked her pointed red feather into his eyes and then begged pardon with an irresistible smile which, fortunately for history, came several centuries too late for St. Anthony.

What Fradley might have done had not the girl been carried off by Garland, nobody can tell. He felt a thump in his throat and a murderous feeling toward Garland, and yet he was sure that he had been about to wither temptation with a frown. Carrington spoke in his ear.

“Look at Sara! Magnificent!” Fradley turned.

Seated upon a table in the gallery with the air of an Empress, Sara received the homage of the Quarter. Behind her Cécile and Clifford waved gaudy fans and imbibed champagne in tall goblets. The curly-headed Cupid and the black-eyed Mephistopheles were endangering their silken hose by sliding down the balustrade, aided and applauded by a Japanese maid and three fairies.

Fradley had eyes for Sara only. “Vulgar,” he said.

“Yes,” said Carrington doubtfully. A great wave of loneliness swept over Fradley.

“Shameless!” he gasped.

Then Sara’s strange grey eyes met his across the whirl of the carnival; he saw her throw up her haughty head and send to him a wonderful smile,—a smile that scorched and yet healed, and in an agony of doubt he opened his lips to cry again to Carrington—to the world, “shameless!” but his lips were dry, and his voice died in his throat with a click.

The music clashed; Cécile dropped her glass and clasped Clifford’s hand; Sara sprang into Boissy’s arms,—there was a rush, a tempest of cheers, and Fradley, jostled and hustled clung to a pillar,—clung a moment only, then was swept away, into the throng.

“Dance!” cried a breathless voice behind him, and, “dance!” cried another voice beside him. He tried to stem the tide,—he shut his eyes, but soft arms were around his neck and a puff of perfume smote him like a blow in the face, and “dance! dance!” cried a voice in his ear. He knew the voice, his eyes flew open and he cried out, but “dance! dance! dance!” she panted, and her burnished hair flew in his face. He saw the crescent on her brow, he saw the strange grey eyes below it. Each separate hair in the fiery mane flashed like a perfumed flame, and he reeled and steadied himself with a soft hand that sought his own, while the orchestra thundered and the rosy ring of faces floated away, away, into an endless rosy chain.

When it was that he drank something, he could not remember. He was very thirsty, and iced champagne was but a temporary relief.

“Good!” cried Boissy with a stare, “so you’re going in for it!”

Fradley looked at him, but Sara dropped her hand on his arm saying, “Toi, tu sais bien danser,” and turning scornfully to Boissy, “go away. You dance like a gendarme!”

The music began again, and with the music bedlam broke loose. There was no pretence of sets. After a couple had danced themselves into exhaustion, they climbed over the balcony and watched the others. Cécile tossed her veil into the human whirlpool below, laughing delightedly as the silver stars were rent from it and sent scaling into the air. Rowden howled through the din for Clifford to pledge him, and smashed glass after glass in a vain effort to make him hear, while the black-eyed Mephistopheles, perched on Garland’s shoulders, poured out goblet after goblet of gold-dust and flung it over the throng until heads and shoulders glittered with the golden scales. Elliott had climbed into the orchestra with a bottle of champagne, and while the grateful musicians were quenching their thirst, he pounded on the spare cymbals until the handles came off and Monsieur Conor ejected him.

Then in the height of the delirium, Arizona shook the walls with his war-cry. “Aw! I’m bad! b-b-a-a-d! Me teeth is choke-bored an’ a hair-trigger works both feet!” Fradley heard that cry and trembled. It came nearer and nearer.

“Pick up the dead! Pick up the dyin’, an’ git the souvenir!”

Sara cried: “Arizona, va t’en!” but it was too late. With a howl from Arizona and a scream from Fradley, they clinched and fell, Arizona on top. He remembered that he punched Arizona and in turn received a tap on the ear which made him forget that he was alive. Garland picked him up, and when consciousness returned he saw Sara, furious, withering Arizona with her scorn.

“Go!” she cried, pointing to the door.

Arizona, humbled and dishevelled, went.

It needed much cooling liquid to put Fradley back where he had been prior to Arizona’s assault, and that condition was far from normal. He proffered menaces, he attempted to divest himself of his coat, but Sara, very pale, and paler still after each goblet in which she pledged the exalted Fradley, took possession of him with all the blindness of sudden caprice.

Fradley felt that his hour,—the hour of the truly great, had struck. Dimly he recalled that other Fradley, the normal one, timid as a rabbit, dreading battle, loathing brute force. Vaguely he remembered that other and normal Fradley, moral, temperate in all but feeding. And he scorned him! Buried forever let him be, that other recreant Fradley! And all the while he went on talking with the others, capering when they capered, drinking when they drank, returning gibe for gibe, defending his own, claiming and pushing his claim with threats—warlike threats, and all the time, dimly, dully commiserating, scorning that other,—that normal Fradley.

Later he revived enough to have a pang of fright as the cold air of the boulevard blew in his face, but the cab was warm and cosey and he sank back to the cushions with a sigh of content. As in a dream he heard the rattle of wheels and the cries of the driver. Other cabs passed—endless lines of them. It seemed centuries before his cab stopped and when it did he objected to leaving it, but Sara had her way, alas now as hazy as his own, and the porter who opened the door for them at the Café Sylvain, winked solemnly at the ancient cabby, who only shook his white head and drove slowly away.