he
table--those days or, perhaps, the days--" She stopped discreetly.

"What days, mademoiselle?"

For the gratification of a curiosity he condemned, Max put the question.

"Oh, monsieur, when some little affair arises upon which he and I
dispute--when some cloud, as it were, darkens the sun." She continued to
look down demurely; then quickly she looked up again. "But I waste your
time! And, besides, I have not finished what I would say."

"Oh, mademoiselle, I beg--"

"It is not of the _poulet_ that I would speak, monsieur! I understand
that artists are not all alike; and that, whereas bad work gives Lucien
an appetite, it gives you a disgust! Still, you are a philosopher, and
will allow others to eat, even if you will not eat yourself."

Max looked bewildered.

"Good!" Jacqueline clapped her hands again softly. "I knew I would find
success! I said I would find success!"

"But, mademoiselle, I do not understand."

"No, monsieur! Neither did M. Blake, when I met him upon the stairs,
and told him of my _poulet_. He also, it seems, had lost his appetite.
Your picture must have been truly bad!"

She discreetly toyed with her belt during the accepted space of time in
which a brain can conceive--a heart leap--to an overmastering joy; then
she looked again at Max.

"It is a little idea of my own, monsieur, that you and M. Edouard should
make the acquaintance of my Lucien. M. Edouard already consents; I hope
that you, monsieur--"

For answer, Max caught her hand. From that moment he loved her--her
prettiness, her mischief, her humanity.

"Mademoiselle! I do not understand--and I do understand!"

"But you will come, monsieur?"

"I will eat your chicken, mademoiselle--even to the bones!"

CHAPTER XVIII

Comradeship in its broader sense is Bohemianism at its best;
Bohemianism, not as it is imagined by the _dilettante_--a thing of
picturesque penury and exotic vice--but a spontaneous intermingling of
personalities, an understanding, a fraternity as purely a gift of the
gods as love or beauty.

It is true that the sense of regained happiness beat strong in the mind
of Max when he followed Jacqueline into her unpicturesque living-room
with its sparse, cheap furniture, its piano and its gas stove, and that
the happiness budded and blossomed like a flower in the sun at the one
swift glance exchanged with Blake; but even had these factors not been
present, he must still have been sensible of the pretty tou