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 the dais and looked through the high windows into a small rear court beyond which stood a garage.

A young man in oily khaki was mending a punctured tire. That, said Grover to himself, is undoubtedly Mme. Casimir's biological escape from reality. He was stocky but trim, with bright wavy hair, sturdy shoulders, a slim waist, and big flexible hands. Entirely understandable, thought Grover, as he meditated upon Mme. Casimir's means of consoling herself for being excluded from the spiritual summits upon which her husband walked. Casimir has his fine creative raptures, and all she has is a hearty old butcher who spends the best part of his life in a room to which she has no key. Why shouldn't she have a human puppy to pet? As for puppies, he reflected, watching the mechanic whistling at his task, they need to be fed and tended. You can't possess youth without paying for it, and probably it all balances out in the end.

Casimir was bringing out more canvasses for Vaudreuil to look at, and Grover returned to his side, out of politeness.

Upon each canvas was a weird and wonderful pattern. There were nebulous flowers pushing up out of vague, unearthly swamps; rubber beasts prowling in the background. In the foreground there were oppressive black and purple mountains, with lonely trees that looked like gigantic cloves, Canvas after canvas was devoted to eggs, in groups of three or four,—suave, sinister eggs, pinkish, bluish, and mauve, like