Page:The Yellow Book - 04.djvu/21

Rh browned pain-de-gruau, she set down on the table at my elbow; then she crossed the room and drew back the window-curtains, making the rings tinkle crisply on the metal rods, and letting in a gush of dazzling sunshine. From where I lay I could see the house-fronts opposite glow pearly-grey in shadow, and the crest of the slate roofs sharply print itself on the sky, like a black line on a sheet of scintillant blue velvet. Yet, a few minutes ago, I had been fancying myself in the Cromwell Road.

Jeanne, gathering up my scattered garments, to take them off and brush them, inquired, by the way, if monsieur had passed a comfortable night.

"As the chambermaid makes your bed, so must you lie in it," I answered. "And you know whether my bed was smoothly made."

Jeanne smiled indulgently. But her next remark—did it imply that she found me rusty? "Here's a long time that you haven't been in Paris."

"Yes," I admitted; "not since May, and now we're in November."

"We have changed things a little, have we not?" she demanded, with a gesture that left the room, and included the house, the street, the quarter.

"In effect," assented I.

"Monsieur desires his hot water?" she asked, abruptly irrelevant.

But I could be, or at least seem, abruptly irrelevant too. "Mademoiselle is she up?"

"Ah, yes, monsieur. Mademoiselle has been up since eight. She awaits you in the salon. La voilà qui joue," she added, pointing to the floor.

Nina had begun to play scales in the room below.

"Then you may bring me my hot water," I said. The