Page:The Yellow Book - 04.djvu/37

Rh she said, "to find nothing changed. To think that everything has gone on quietly in the usual way. As if I hadn't spent an eternity in exile!" And at the corner of one street, before a vast flaunting "bazaar," with a prodigality of tawdry Oriental wares exhibited on the pavement, and little black shopmen trailing like beetles in and out amongst them, "Oh," she cried, "the Mecque du Quartier! To think that I could weep for joy at seeing the Mecque du Quartier!"

By and by we plunged into a dark hallway, climbed a long, unsavoury corkscrew staircase, and knocked at a door. A gruff voice having answered, "Trez!" we entered Chalks's bare, bleak, paint-smelling studio. He was working (from a lay-figure) with his back towards us; and he went on working for a minute or two after our arrival, without speaking. Then he demanded, in a sort of grunt, "Eh bien, qu'est ce que c'est?" always with out pausing in his work or looking round. Nina gave two little ahems, tense with suppressed mirth; and slowly, indifferently, Chalks turned an absent-minded face in our direction. But, next instant, there was a shout—a rush—a confusion of forms in the middle of the floor—and I realised that I was not the only one to be honoured by a kiss and an embrace. "Oh, you're covering me with paint," Nina protested suddenly; and indeed he had forgotten to drop his brush and palette, and great dabs of colour were clinging to her cloak. While he was doing penance, scrubbing the garment with rags soaked in turpentine, he kept shaking his head, and murmuring, from time to time, as he glanced up at her, "Well, I'll be dumned."

"It's very nice and polite of you, Chalks," she said, by and by, "a very graceful concession to my sex. But, if you think it would relieve you once for all, you have my full permission to pronounce it —amned." Chalks