Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/244

 made just as beautiful a picture with any one of a hundred models."

"Nonsense! The credit for this picture is yours too. If you don't know that, you don't know anything . . . Get your clothes on and we'll go somewhere or other and have a fine dinner and celebrate."

She obeyed meekly and Edward waited, still smiling, but no longer admiring his picture. He was smiling at the thought of models in general and Anne in particular. She always did her dressing and undressing with the utmost modesty behind the screen. And between times gave no more thought to modesty or immodesty than a fly.

During the making of the nocturne, Anne and Edward had dined together a good many times, and the Quarter had begun to talk about them. But the Quarter talked very pleasantly. Because in France as in the South Seas human nature is supposed to emanate from God and on that account to be highly respectable.

On this particular night they dined in the Café Brabant, which at the time was enjoying a huge popularity among the students and models. They had it to themselves, and, in old Madame Brabant, a friend who could be unusually patient with overdue accounts.

Certain students, having attracted Anne's and