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FRIEND had said to me, "Since you are going South, when at Cannes, why not push on toward Cagnes, some fifteen kilometres away, and try to see Renoir. I am not sufficiently intimate with him to give you a card of introduction, but take your chance."

I took it. Cagnes is an old hillside village facing the Mediterranean. Its fisher-folk had defended it against the invasion of Corsairs during the Middle Ages, thanks to the picturesque and vertiginous slope upon which it is reared. Sea-rovers came from afar to view the place—its outlook is magnificent. From its heights one's eyes sweep the horizon.

Would Monsieur Renoir receive me?

He had not slept during the night, a servant informed me, "but," said she, "if you will give me your card, I'll ask if he can see you."

I waited in the yard—or rather neglected kitchen garden. The glazed brick house, of the Louis XVI type, had the air of one of those jerry-built villas, thrown together from season to season at watering places, their speculative builders being notorious for their lack of taste.

Presently the servant returned. "If you will be kind enough to enter the dining-room," she said, "we will lower Monsieur."

Lower him—what did she mean? I wondered.

Renoir had been a widower some three years. One felt it about the place; remnants of the old order had not been swept aside. In a corner by the window, a table contained some brushes, a box of water-colours; some little pottery tiles decorated with flowers, childish drawings of boats and trees, and several plates with Renoir's typical nude, one knee crossing the other. I recognized the colour and treatment of the master. Did Renoir work in ceramics, then?

But at that moment I perceived through the partly opened door two women descending the stairs, carrying the aged painter in a sort