Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/164

 it out by tossing him in a blanket,—won't we, fellows?"

"No, don't; it is n't necessary," cried the painter; "Feuardent 's been giving me an order."

"What subject?" inquired Bouton de Rose, a connoisseur in pictures and himself something of a painter.

"A nocturne in blue, a study of himself in water-colors as he looked when we came in to-night, to be presented to the Anti-Prohibition Society as an awful warning against teetotalism."

Cards were next proposed; and the play was growing serious when Bouton de Rose started from the table, threw down his cards, and refused to play any longer. For explanation he turned an empty pocket wrong side out; and throwing open the window, bade the company look out on the night they were wasting in each other's society. "To find oneself in the company of men on such a night is a crime against the fair sex," he said. The moonlight streamed into the room; and leaning from the window, Feuardent caught sight of a figure in the courtyard below. It vanished immediately, but not until he had recognized it as that of a woman—a tall woman and a young one, judging by the light step with which she sprang back into the