Chapter V: Claude Raoul Dupont (3)

Those are terrible moments when a crowd first realises imminent danger, and the instinct of self-preservation overrides all fellow-feeling, shows no mercy, gives no quarter. Yes, indeed, keep your head up, or you are lost. In the garden above, the festive gathering was suddenly changed into a scene of confusion. The ladies shrieked, and one or two of them swooned in sheer sympathetic terror. Men thundered words of command to the crowd below, that were lost in a sea of noises. At the first indication of danger, Jeanne had darted away like an arrow into the house; Claude was to the front trying, but in vain, to reach the child that was being held up by a pair of strong arms. A few instants more and Jeanne was back, carrying a chair. Not a pin could drop to the ground that crowd covered, but the chair did, and, with its aid, the work of rescue began.

"Get another," she called to Claude, "that one will be broken up directly," and off she was again. Another minute and she appeared at a window overlooking the Rue Boissy d'Anglais, brandishing the first thing she chanced to lay hands upon--a large Turkish sabre. The shy girl with the red hair, the abject coward, was transformed into a modern Jeanne d'Arc, mowing the air with the curved blade of the Saracens; a curious picture, that arrested the attention of the crowd beneath, at a point some two hundred yards in the rear of the dangerous corner of the Avenue Gabrielle, thus holding in check for a moment the seething mass of people who were pressing forward, unconscious of the danger to life and limb they were creating.

"En arrière!" she cried. "On s'écrase la bas! Barrez la rue!" An officer of the Gensdarmerie took in the situation. He backed his horse on the advancing crowd, orders were given to stop the influx from the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, and a catastrophe was averted.

The story of the timely relief of those besieged garden walls rapidly spread amongst the guests, who were gradually recovering from their fright. The ladies had ceased shrieking, and had completed the elaborate process of swooning, and of being brought round by the polite attentions of the gentlemen; they were now extolling Jeanne's presence of mind.

"My dear," said one old lady, "without you they would have stormed the house, and with my wretched health, I should not have survived it."

"Yes," added her son-in-law, "single-handed she beat the rabble back. She ought to have the Legion d'Honneur."

"Take me away," Jeanne said to Claude; "anywhere, into the house."

"Do you mind my stopping with you?" asked Claude, but not till they had settled on a many-cushioned divan in the coolest and quietest room of the Embassy.

"Do stop," she said, "to protect me from the rabble. I might not be able to beat it back single-handed."

Claude thought he had never seen her hair so beautifully untidy before.

* * * * *

"I am sure I said nothing; no, _nothing_. But I can't help fancying she thinks I said _something_, and that's what makes me miserable."

So Claude assured me as I closely cross-questioned him on the subject of that day's conversation. Something had happened since to make him revert to the many-cushioned divan with uneasiness. He had gone, much against his inclination, on a visit to his uncle's.

"I know it's a guet-apens, a trap," he had said to me. "The old story; he wants to marry me to some money-bag. Anyway, he's too late now; I'm not in the market. For all that I wish I had Jeanne down there to help me beat off the enemy with her Turkish scimitar. Bother matrimony! Why must we always be thinking of it? As if loving and being loved wasn't heavenly enough by itself. And why must we always go a-hunting in so-called society? Don't you think we ought to stick to our Quartier Latin and take a spouse of our own Bohemian type, instead of pottering about in swell salons and falling in love with some fine lady who will expect a fellow to go about disguised as a gentleman for the rest of his natural life?"

Such were his sentiments before he started. Four days afterwards he returned in love with a beautiful woman, and quite disposed to make a gentleman, or even a fool, of himself for her sake.

I happened to know her. Her name was Olga Rabachot. Her father was a Pole, one of those ill-fated noblemen who died for their country, whose estates were sequestrated, and whose fortune went to swell the coffers of the Russian Treasury. The mother and daughter settled in Paris. I suppose they lived in a garret, and gave music lessons, after the style of good Polish refugees; but I really know nothing about it, and probably only derive my impressions from the circumstance that the mother sang and the daughter played one evening when I was introduced to them at the house of Hittorff, the famous architect of the Place de la Concorde. A short time afterwards it was rumoured that a Monsieur Rabachot, an elderly gentleman who had made a fortune in business, had become much attracted by the charms and graces of the mother, Madame Somethingiska. This proved to be true, but only inasmuch as he saw in her an eligible mother-in-law. We soon heard to our surprise that his hand and his fortune had been accepted by the daughter, the younger _iska_.

The curiously assorted couple enjoyed but a brief term of matrimonial bliss, or whatever else it may have been. Before a year had gone by, the wealthy manufacturer was suddenly struck down by heart disease, as he stood by the open grave of a friend. The incident made quite a sensation in Paris at the time.

It was the bereaved widow, then, that Claude met at his uncle's. The late husband had been on terms of close friendship with the tanner, and had appointed him one of the executors of his will. But all business connected with this had been settled nearly a twelvemonth ago, and now l'oncle Auguste thought it about time to put his abilities in the matrimonial agency line to the test. So, as Claude had correctly guessed, he had prepared his little guet-apens.

With Claude it was love at first sight--that is, if we may apply the term love to what is begotten of intense admiration for the creature beauties of woman. She had eyes, so it seemed to me at least, that might rest when off duty, but would ever be on the alert where they could be used to advantage. Her mouth, I must say, was most attractive. The lips were carved, curved, and coloured to perfection, and I cannot recollect ever having seen any of their kind better fitted to be met by other lips. Her pallor was interesting, her hair jet black, and her manners fascinating; but for all that I could never have worshipped at her shrine. Not so Claude. He saw everything in her that a man sees when he is struck blind by the God of love.

As we walked home together, on his return from that first meeting, we talked it all over. When we got home we talked it all over again. First it was daytime; then came the night; then the day broke again, and we were still talking--always on that inexhaustible theme that, since articulate sound was created, has used up more language than all other themes put together.

It must have been thus, I feel confident, that Orestes and Pylades talked by the hour when one of them or both were in love, and so too all the O.'s and P.'s, and, for the matter of that, all the other initials of the alphabet, ranging from the Alpha to the Omega.

At first I was not sympathetically inclined, and put spokes into the wheels that were running away with Claude. After a while I merely tried to apply the brake, lest he should rush down hill too rapidly, but I finally found myself running and rolling along, doing my best to keep pace with him.

The fact is his enthusiasm was catching. He described that woman so vividly that, for the time being, I could not help seeing her as he painted her. To be sure the thousand and one little details that made up our conversation do not bear repetition. The facts that I elicited were these: At his uncle's bidding Claude came, Claude saw, and Claude was conquered. Was she conquered too? That was a question not easily answered. During the four days they were together she sometimes accepted his attentions very graciously; at other times she was anything but encouraging, and even showed so marked a preference for the uncle that it seemed as if the young widow had preserved a taste for elderly husbands. He, l'oncle Auguste, inclined as he was under ordinary circumstances to lord it over friend and foe alike, was unmistakably cowed in the presence of the Polish fascinator. She not only showed interest in the tanner's work, but also fearlessly indulged in criticism; this more especially in reference to the ventilation of some of the workshops. That she should have selected this particular subject for her adverse comments rather surprised me, for I had been brought up in the belief that the Poles might ventilate their grievances, but not much else.

The subject led to a rather lively discussion between Madame Rabachot and Claude's uncle, she being of the very advanced opinion that a man, even if he only worked from ten to twelve hours a day in an enclosed space, was entitled to a fair amount of pure air, whereas the distinguished head of the concern, who was of the good old school, maintained that in his experience of many years' standing he had always gone by the golden rule that the amount of fresh air provided for the workman should be in exact proportion to the wages he is paid. The fair advocate of man's rights, however, stood her ground so well that the unfortunate employer had to give way, and promise the desired reforms.

This episode made a great impression on Claude, as well it might. Perhaps, though, he went a little far, when he said she was a noble creature, the champion of the great cause of suffering humanity, and the like. To be sure the chief factor of her strength was the splendid gift she possessed of using her eyes.

I elicited that even whilst skirmishing with the uncle she always had at least one eye on the nephew; that one was evidently enough to hold him in subjection, for with it she had condescended to say many pleasant things that she did not deem it desirable to entrust to the indiscretions of the lips. Taking it all in all, I came to the conclusion that she was, to say the least of it, very much interested in Claude, but that, being of a kittenish disposition, she had coquetted with the uncle in the playful way so frequently practised by women when they look sweet upon one man with a view to quickening the pulses of another, whose affections they aspire to secure.

If Claude said he was miserable, it was not so much because it was yet an open question whether the young widow could reciprocate his feelings, but because the image of Jeanne stood between him and his new love. He knew that Jeanne was more than partial to him, and he felt that he had been slowly but surely drawn towards her.

How much or how little had he really shown the interest he took in her was the question that exercised his mind. Had he ever said anything that she could have construed into an acknowledgment of a deeper feeling than that of friendship, anything that would be at least morally binding? No, certainly not in words; but then, to be sure, much can be said without the use of spoken language. Of all the songs without words the love song is the most legible. Besides, the most harmless of words can make mischief if they are taken in connection with what has preceded. The statement that twice two makes four is innocent enough in itself, but it may, under given circumstances, be made to say that she has two eyes and so have you, and that, if she could only vouchsafe to see with your eyes as you see with hers, twice two in this particular case would make one.

Nor need you propound subtle solutions of arithmetical problems; you need but admire the humble cottage as you go across fields with her, if you want to commit yourself irrevocably, and so too, the mere mention of the moon has been enough to dispose of a man for life.

Claude may not have strictly avoided every opening of this kind, but I certainly do not think he had any cause for self-reproach. I felt sorry for Jeanne, for it was evident that, for some time to come at least, there was little prospect of her regaining whatever hold she might have had on him. There was nothing to be done in that direction; so we shelved Mademoiselle Jeanne _sine die,_ and talked of the other one.

That other one had been particularly sympathetic in her appreciation of Claude's picture; it had at last been completed and sent to the Salon. On the varnishing day it was sold to a dealer for two thousand francs.

"That goes to the Madeleine fund," said Dupont, who was always planning great things for the girl's future.

"That goes to me," said the dealer, as he resold the picture and pocketed a profit of fifteen hundred francs.

The "Daughter of Jairus" could not fail to attract much attention. Original as it was in its composition, and independent in its conception of a religious subject, it led to much heated controversy in the leading papers of the day. In some of them the artist was lauded to the skies; in others, roundly abused. Those three poor dear little innocents standing at the open door of Jairus's house, more than any other incident in the picture, gave rise to brilliant argument, vigorously attacked as they were on the one hand, and heroically defended on the other.

Virtually the able art-critics were divided into two camps, from which they issued grandiloquent manifestoes, and passed judgment on art and artists, past, present, and future. I have not preserved cuttings from the papers, but I think I can give a pretty correct idea of the opposite views taken by those heaven-born wiseacres, the art-critics of the day, only apologising to them for my poor rendering of their doctrines.

"Monsieur Claude Dupont," said one set, "is a young man of great promise; he is a powerful draughtsman, and his gifts, if turned to account, may prove him to be a worthy champion of that severe and chaste school that gave us a Lesueur, an Ingres, and a Flandrin. Whilst prognosticating so bright a future to Monsieur Dupont, we feel, however, that we should not be doing our duty, if we did not warn him against the perverse influence that the apostles of the so-called Realistic school have already begun to exercise over his brush. We allude to the three children most unseemingly intruding on the grand scene that is being enacted in the house of sorrow. Let us hope that the danger that threatens the young artist may yet be averted, and that so much talent may be applied to perpetuate the traditions of a great past."

"Monsieur Claude Dupont," said the other camp, "has a great future before him, if he wisely utilises his gifts. We welcome in him a painter who, in his treatment of a religious subject, breaks with the traditions of an effete school. The introduction of those three children, peering with wondering eyes into the house of mysteries, we consider a stroke of genius. But for all that, the fetters forged by the past are still clinging to him. We heartily congratulate him on the step he has taken towards emancipation, but we would have him fully realise, that if he is to fulfil the brilliant promise of this his first picture, he must abjure once for all the errors and conventionalities of a school destined to perish at the hands of triumphant Realism."

These newspaper comments affected different people in different ways. Rosa Bonheur Sinel resented anything short of unqualified praise, and was simply indignant with one writer who had ventured to criticise the drapery she had sat for. The article commenting on the masterly drawing of her foot, she kept in a discarded hatbox with other treasures, prominent amongst which was a defunct goldfish preserved in a glass bottle.

Madeleine was supremely happy. She had seen a very sympathetic notice in the leading paper of Lyons.

"I am proud of the picture," she wrote to Claude, "and I can think
of nothing else. I am sure I am quite glad I was so ill, if that
helped you at all. The man who wrote the article was kind enough to
say he liked the way I opened my eyes so much, that he was glad I
had come to life again. I thought that rather flippant. Don't you
think so, too? But then he described the whole picture so
beautifully, that I fancied I could see it; he seemed to like it
all, only he wanted some more 'impasto.' What can that be? May I
tell you about a dream I had? You know I am always having dreams;
you won't mind, will you? It's quite short, and it is all about
you. I saw you in a large looking-glass, but not all of you; only
from your neck to your feet; I could not see your head. Besides, I
should not have noticed it if it had been in the looking-glass; I
could only look at your feet. You had those slippers on I
embroidered for you last year, and I was so unhappy, because they
were so ugly; so unhappy, that I woke up quite upset. And since
then I've been thinking, how could I ever have sent you such a
stupid flower pattern, all so hard and stiff? I do feel ashamed of
it now.

"Madame Chevillard is so kind. She says I am her daughter, and I
feel as if I really were. In the evening I go up to her room, and
she unlocks her treasure cupboard, and takes out something to show
me and tell me about. She has got beautiful books, and she lets me
read them to her; she sits in her big armchair and looks sweet, and
she seems to know everything that is in the books. There is one
that just tells all about the artists; there are lots of hard words
in it, and one can only read a little of it at a time. Sometimes
she laughs at me, because I say I should like to be an artist, too.
I don't mean painting, but making some kind of thing beautifully.

"And often, when I read to her, I begin to wonder again how the
thoughts get into the book, and I can get them out again.

"I ought to leave off writing, Madame Chevillard says, so adieu,
Monsieur.--I am, your grateful friend,

"MADELEINE.

"_P.S._--Please throw away the slippers; do. I am making you a
surprise, and madame says it is going to be a much better piece of
work this time. I should so much like to tell you what it is, but
then, to be sure, it would not be a surprise.

"How nice you have Monsieur Felix staying with you; he is good.

"I am glad your cough is better, but do take care of yourself."

Ah, yes! we all wished he would take care of himself; but, alas! that is just the thing he could not be induced to do. One would think that to be in love with one woman, and just out of love with another, would be fairly enough to occupy one man's mind; but it was not so with Claude. He was working in his studio, in museums and libraries, all day long, and of an evening he would study anatomy, as if he bad been qualifying for a doctor. Pictures seemed constantly coming to him, like so many mocking Will-o'-the-wisps, flitting before his eyes when they were open, and twitting his worried brain when they were closed.

Madeleine's letters were always particularly quieting and soothing to him, and he used to say that, when he wanted a rest, he liked to sit down and write to her.

* * * * *

Not long after Claude's momentous visit to his uncle I had again to leave Paris. It was a wrench to part with him just when he needed a friend to help him through his joys and troubles, but duties of various kinds called me back to Munich, so there was nothing for it but to say good-bye. We felt it doubly, for we knew we were not to meet for some time. Write we should, to be sure, we were always good correspondents; and this time there was no need to assure one another that we should do so often.

I started from the Gare du Nord.

"Good-bye then, old fellow! _Au revoir--adieu!_"--lightly said, deeply felt.

I rolled on, thinking of Claude and Jeanne, the widow and Madeleine, till I got to my destination, my queer little studio in that ramshackle old house, Schützenstrause No. 5/3 links. The address is no use now, for that abode of mine is pulled down, as are its dear decrepit brothers and sisters, and the primitive old station opposite. All to make room for new buildings more suitable to tenants with sensitive noses and rectilinear tastes.

The first letter that reached me from Paris was not, as I expected, in Claude's handwriting, but in his father's. It told me that Claude was too ill to write. He was to have gone down to his uncle's on the Saturday (I had left on the Tuesday), and he was looking forward to what only a short time previously he had called a trap, a guet-apens, with the greatest impatience, for amongst other guests would be Olga Rabachot. But before the day came he caught a severe chill, and was peremptorily ordered to bed.

The fascinating widow he was never to see again. Not only the old cough had returned, but with it symptoms sufficiently grave to make it desirable he should winter abroad.

I had foreseen, and so has doubtless any one who has cared so far to follow Dupont on the love-path, that it was not he who would marry, the fascinating widow, but the uncle, and so I may as well state that such was the case. How it came about I either never knew or have forgotten, and as I should only be getting out of my depth if I attempted to fill the gap with scraps of fiction, I will confine myself to the simple narrative based on my recollections, and will merely add that I trust the uncle and the aunt lived happily ever after, and that the workmen at the dyer's works got as much ventilation as was procurable at that time and in that particular part of the world.

Claude soon left for Mentone. Then came my turn; was it sympathy or was it coincidence? About the same time I too was taken ill, and that seriously. The cause was not far to seek: a component part in the great scheme of creation is a certain vicious north-east wind that seems to live and thrive on annihilation. This Boreas is a kind of ogre who feeds not only on fat babies, but on any mortal thing that he can turn into dust. Not satisfied with his legitimate prey, the autumn leaves, he explores every nook and corner seeking whom he may devour. He found me out one evening after a day of unusual heat, as soon after sunset he suddenly came sweeping across the mountains that lie to the north-east of Munich. For months to come he laid me low, very low, and thus all the fine plans that Claude and I had made for a regular correspondence, that would keep us linked together at least mentally, came to naught. Letters dictated to the kind and anxious watchers by our respective bedsides were but poor substitutes for the minutely detailed accounts of our doings that we usually exchanged, or for the heartfelt effusions that our friendship prompted.

But to talk of one's illnesses is really a most unpardonable offence. For all the purposes of description one can find quite enough of weakness in man when he is strong and hearty, without going out of one's way to ransack the sick-room for further evidence of his frailty. So I will merely mention that I was and remained an invalid throughout the greater part of the ensuing winter.

The truth concerning Claude's health was kept from me. I since knew that he had passed through an alarming crisis; when the fever was at its height, his mind had been wandering, and in his disconnected talk he had alternately appealed to Olga in the tenderest language, and had shrunk from her imaginary presence with aversion and terror. When calm returned and comparative health, he would not speak of her. Something of the shrinking remained.

"With you I could talk about her," he said in the first letter he
could write from Mentone, "but I must wait till I am stronger, and
particularly till I hear better accounts of you. It was an
unpleasant dream that--well--that Erlkönig dream. Again and again I
cried out: 'Mein Vater, mein Vater!'--no help came--_her_ voice
pursued me--On we dashed fever-spurred, till I lay dead in _her_
arms.

"But, to be sure that is all 'such stuff as dreams are made of.' To
you, my dear fellow, I should only send pleasant visions, like
those I am revelling in here. A new world is every day unfolded
before me, a world vibrating with light and glowing with colour. I
have seen the woods and the hills and the waters before, but never
in their gala uniform, and I am simply dazzled. Where are my
beloved outlines? They seem merged in harmonies and swamped in
colours so glorious, that even I lose sight of them. Do you know,
my dear Felix, since I am here I feel there is in me the making of
a colourist, a germ somewhere hidden away so far down, that perhaps
it may never thrive and reach the surface, but a source of
happiness it is to me all the same. When I get strong enough I am
going to nurse the little stranger, and see whether I can coax him
on to the canvas; but I shall do nothing till I have made careful
drawings of a couple of hundred olive trees. Why, every trunk is a
weird fantastic subject in itself, and every branch as it twists
and writhes in titanic agonies. It is as if all the lines of the
universe had taken the olive groves for their place of rendezvous.

"Literally so; for there as I sat wool-gathering the other day, I
descried approaching me the unmistakable lines of Gobelot's hat, a
direct descendant of the one we punished in the glorious old Gleyre
days; and under the hat was the man himself, walking through life
as placidly as ever. He has evidently not yet learnt to draw a
foot, so he has not fitted himself for a bootmaker. Nor need he,
for his father, who died not long ago, left him quite a little
fortune, _rien que cela_! Amongst other properties he inherits a
villa in the best part of Mentone, with a beautiful view on to the
sea, and so many acres of land; the very olive tree I was sitting
under belongs to him. He has come down here to take possession, and
was glad to find in me some one whom he could talk to. The fact is,
he wanted to unburden himself of a secret. He is in love. He is
engaged; you will never guess to whom. Wait; don't look to the
end. She was a young girl whom you knew before she was beautiful,
as he assures me she is now. She always loved the theatre, and one
day, it appears, she was irresistibly attracted by the bills that
announced the performance of that lovely opera of Cherubini's, 'The
Water-Carrier.' That she must see. So she treated herself to a very
good seat, and went off all by herself to witness for the first
time in her life the performance of an opera. Then and there she
was stage-struck, and swore by her illustrious godmother that she
could and would be a singer. She asked some one to teach her, and
wouldn't take 'No' for an answer. She next asked some one to bring
her out, and made him do so, and got the public to applaud into the
bargain. I'm not sure she didn't ask Gobelot to marry her; but so
much is certain--he's going to, and we shall soon hear of Madame
Gobelot, _née_ Rosa Bonheur Sinel. Qu'en dis tu? L'oncle Auguste
was right. Didn't we one day have to mark his words, 'When she gets
a comb to keep that mop of hers in order, she'll find a carriage
and pair too.' Now she'll have it, and a good deal besides; and you
can be sure she will be the Queen of the Regatta, and win all the
prizes.

"I wish I had you here to tell you more, but I must break off, I am
so tired.

CLAUDE."

The generally cheerful tone of Claude's letters, as of some I received from his father about this time, was, as I know now, only adopted because I was considered far too unwell to be told the truth. In reality, Claude's condition gave cause for grave anxiety.

I was not a little surprised to learn that Madeleine was installed as Claude's nurse in Mentone. It was all the uncle's doing. He who had always resented the mention of her name--and it was often on Claude's lips--had been instrumental in bringing her to his side. The invalid was told that Madame Chevillard and Madeleine were on their way to Genoa, where the former had been appointed to superintend the formation of a school of embroidery. There was no truth in the story; it had only been concocted to explain their presence to Claude.

His uncle had himself gone to Lyons, and had induced Mademoiselle Chevillard to bring her ward to Mentone. How matters stood there he told them with tears in his eyes. They must come at once, and---- stop to the last.

A month had elapsed, and every day had brought Madeleine nearer to the friend she tended. Her long enforced stay in a hospital had naturally qualified her to nurse the sick; but it was not her experience alone, but her devotion to Claude, deep-rooted and untiring, that came to wrestle with the messenger of death. And the invalid who had been so restless, even so querulous, before her arrival, was now soothed by the mere sound of her voice, and as he looked into her amethyst eyes, an unknown happiness dawned upon him.

Thus I found him and her when I arrived. I had set out for Mentone as soon as I was strong enough to travel. It was in April; God's Nature was bright, but sad was the journey, sadder the meeting.

I was fully prepared to find my friend much changed, but when we met I had difficulty to conceal from him how shocked and distressed I was by his appearance. I could not but see that he was rapidly wasting away, a prey to that terrible disease, consumption. The matted hair clinging to the moist forehead, the pulses on the temples beneath marking life's ebb; the sunken cheek and the hollow soundless voice, all foreshadowed the approaching end. As I sat by his side and held his emaciated hand, I felt I had come none too soon.

Yet he sought to appear cheerful.

"Where are my birds, _ma petite_?" he asked Madeleine. "Give me the 'surprise.' Look here, Felix, isn't she an artist?" he said, holding up the surprise; the same his _petite_ had announced as being in preparation. It had taken the shape of an embroidered mat to put under his lamp.

Yes, she was an artist. Her subject was simple enough. Four birds representing the four seasons filled the corners of a grey silk square. There was the crow, the swallow, the nightingale--the fourth I forget; each beautifully modelled with many-shaded threads of silk, and linked together by a cleverly-contrived garland of flowers, appropriate to the seasons they were to illustrate. In the centre, entertwined with a bunch of evergreen, a ribbon, on which were embroidered the words--

"Les saisons qui changent
L'amitié ne dérangent."

Yes, she was right. True friendship will not change with the seasons that come and go. But had she thought, as she plied the needle, of the friendship that ripens and grows, expanding till it is merged in affection of a deeper nature?

* * * * *

"Stop with me another ten minutes, then let me rest," Claude said, as we sat by the window, waiting for the moon to rise. "Perhaps I shall see it; or if not, I shall know it has risen."

"Where must I look for it?" I asked.

"Over those hills. It will hide behind the mists. Wait, to-morrow perhaps; Thursday--Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Wait."

He was exhausted; I would not let him speak more, but left him to rest, watched by the pale girl that was ever by his side.

The next day he seemed so much better that he surprised us all. Could it be possible that a crisis was passed, that the illness had taken a favourable turn? One dared not think so, but yet the balmy air of Mentone had ere this worked wonders.

"O Felix," he said, "I feel happier than I have ever been. Every day brings me new life and light. The world is more beautiful than I thought; not all drawing; colour too, such colour!" After a pause, he continued--

"I must tell you all, Felix. I was blind, and she--slowly, gradually--led me out of the darkness. I thought I knew what love was--Paris--you know--all passion, pain; love is peace, happiness. It is she who taught me. I have peered into the deepest of all mysteries, too great to be solved in this world." And he fell back on his cushions, and gazed as if in a trance, murmuring "Ma petite."

High winds had been blowing for the last few days, whipping up the waves of the blue sea and chasing the clouds across the path of the moon, but now nature was returning to its pleasanter mood, and the clouds were gradually dropping into line, and taking up positions just above the horizon.

Saturday had come.

"Good-night, father; good-night, uncle. I feel much better."

Madeleine and I remained. Vigils and anxiety had told upon her. The bloom had left her cheeks, and her eyes were heavy. We wheeled his chair to the window and propped him up with pillows.

"Over that hill," he said, "at 11.59;--curious--just a minute before midnight--I watched it grow ever since it was a tender crescent."

The full moon rose, a red disc, blood red, emerging from this world of strife; it ascended, taking its hues from man's yellow gold; then on--freed from terrestrial mists, excelsior to purer skies.

"See," he said, "a true circle; no beginning and no end. The emblem of eternity!"

Madeleine was resting her weary head on her arms as they lay folded on the window-sill. Silvery rays fell through the window and played around her hair.

"Hush! let her rest. Ma sainte! See now--that halo of light around her head--a vision." He spoke with an effort, but on that early Sunday morning he told me how deeply he loved Madeleine.

The sun rose once more on Claude; never again the moon. He was still sitting on that chair when his head dropped to move no more. We were all present. Madeleine knelt by his side and buried her face in the grey rug she had so often laid across his knees. She held his lifeless hand and wept in silent anguish until we led her away.

* * * * *

Did she know, poor Madeleine, that she too had but a few years to live? that the germs of the unrelenting disease which had carried off her friend, her lover, were at work within her?

I was with her when she too closed her eyes,--so peacefully, serenely. It was a vision of love that passed away from amongst us.

"I am quite happy. You will lay me by his side?"

"Yes, Madeleine,--yes."

* * * * *

And now that I have said what I wanted to say about those friends of my early days, and followed them to the closing chapters of their lives, I ought perhaps at once to turn over a new leaf and record a fresh impression. But it is hard to dismiss memories which one has evoked. Why should one? Nothing in good old Nature is abrupt; the sun sets and day fades into night; in the rainbow yellow merges into green, and green into blue, and it seems but in keeping with the ways of Nature that there should be something to read between the lines of a slightly sketched life-story, and something to be thought out between heterogeneous chapters. They cannot but be varying if they are to depict the motley crowd of figures that go to make up one's own experiences. Such chapters are like the various pieces on the programme of a musical recital. There we are taken from a fugue to a notturno, from a grande valse to a moonshine sonata; and the pianist, if by some chance he happens to be a musician, leads us with a few improvised chords, from one mood to another, from flats to sharps, major to minor.

So then my starting-point is once more Dupont, and before I think of other friends, I find myself speculating as to what he might have achieved, and to what honours he might have attained, had he lived. What would he have thought of to-day, and what would to-day have thought of him? To be sure he would be wearing a bit of red ribbon in his button-hole, as all distinguished Frenchmen do; and who is not distinguished? By this time he would have been an Academician, royal or national, a Membre de l'Institut, perhaps even one of the forty "Immortals," if he had taken to the pen, as we know painters will sometimes do. In the eyes of the rising generation the Immortals mostly take rank with any other old fogeys, and Dupont would have fared no better than his contemporaries at the hands of the _Nous avons changé tout cela's_ of the day.

It could not have been otherwise; for, alas! (and I have not sought to disguise it) he had none of their distinctive qualities. He never loved the un-beautiful for its own sake, nor was he a man of the prominent-wart school. In his compositions elevated thought and subtle expression had a fatal tendency to eclipse the non-essentials; his luminary rays were painted without regard for the laws of decomposition, and his atmospheric vibrations, if he attempted them at all, were not worth speaking of. Besides, the least practised art-student of to-day would not fail to notice that his careful drawing of hands, or the graceful lines of his draperies, would monopolise attention, to the detriment of the backgrounds, which had a way of receding, so that the main interest of the picture could never be said to concentrate upon them.

The enchantress, Art, is ever making new victims. Just now she is wedded to the new master, the variety painter, and is on her wedding-trip, fully equipped with new fashions of tone and colour, rich too in new values; and she travels along happily unconscious--some ignorance is bliss--over the treacherous roads designed by the "new" perspective, past tottering towers, over warped planes, and down steep inclines, pluckily standing her ground where those fallen angels, the old masters, would have feared to tread.

It's the old suit once more before us; young folks versus old fogeys, the traditional battle-royal, to be fought to-day, as it will be fought to the end of all time. I say, Hurrah for the young ones! Perhaps they are leading us a step or two backwards, but I verily believe it is only to _reculer pour mieux sauter_, to back, we should say, the better to jump. So let us keep the line clear for youth and strength; we can't do without their vigorous onslaughts. Where would the old tree of art be, if it were not for the new shoots?