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 and he's having his supper in his room. The chambermaid said he hadn't been well," Sonia explained.

The meal dragged on indefinitely, the frantic serving-wenches vainly trying to cope with the number of their charges. Every dish was cold or poor. Soup arrived after the meat, and vegetables with the pudding. But there was little objection. Every one was either too devout or too interested to trouble about food for the time being. The four dissimilar girls were probably as much of an incongruity as the other guests or the distorted meal. Theirs was one of those oddly combined friendships, evolved in studios, with which all dwellers in France have become familiar. At bottom there is always the stratum of common ambitions, appreciation, and Bohemianism, in spite of unbridgeable divergencies of character and traditions.

Just now the four were equally delighted. Miss Bently and Sonia with the paintable qualities of the pilgrimage; Shorty, with the photographic possibilities, and Victoria with the human passion of excitement and faith that ran riot in and about 37