eatly over his ample paunch. It was early in the
afternoon and the room beyond him, sometimes filled with possibilities
for customers, was empty.

"_Ah, monsieur est revenu!_" he exclaimed in his piping voice. "_C'est
pour la petite Polonaise sans doute que monsieur revient?_"

"_Oui_," answered Sitgreaves, "_faut-il attendre longtemps?_"

"_Mais non, monsieur, un petit moment. Elle habite en face. Je vais
envoyer le garcon la chercher tout de suite. Et pour monsieur, votre
ami?_"

"_Je ne desire rien_," I replied.

Marcel bowed humbly.... "_Comme monsieur voudra._" Then a doubt
assailed him. "_Peut-etre que la petite Polonaise vous suffira a tous
les deux?_"

"_Jamais de la vie!_" I shouted, "_Flute, Mercure, allez! Je suis
puceau!_"

Marcel was equal to this. "_Et ta soeur?_" he demanded as he
disappeared down the staircase.

He had put us meanwhile in the very chamber with the red curtains and
the picture of Cupid and Psyche that Sitgreaves had described. Perhaps
all the rooms were similarly decorated. I lounged on the bed while
Sitgreaves sat on a chair and smoked....

I answered his last question, "No, they are true, but there is
selection and form."

"While other memoirs have neither selection nor form and usually are
not altogether accurate in the bargain...."

"Especially Madame Melba's...."

"Especially," agreed Sitgreaves delightedly, "Madame Melba's."

"Moore is really right," I went on. "He says that some people insist
that Balzac was greater than Turgeniev, because the Frenchman took his
characters from imagination, the Russian his from life. You will
remember, however, that Edgar Saltus says, 'The manufacture of fiction
from facts was begun by Balzac.' Moore's point is that all great
writers write from observation. There is no other way. A character may
have more or less resemblance to the original; it may be derived and
bear a different name; still there must have been something.... In a
letter which Moore once wrote me stands the phrase, 'Memory is the
mother of the Muses.' 'Hail and Farewell' is just as much a work of
imagination, according to Moore, as 'A Nest of Noblemen' or 'Les
Illusions Perdues.'"

"Of course," admitted Sitgreaves. "No writer but what has suffered
from the recognition of his characters. Dickens got into trouble.
Oscar Wilde is said to have done himself in 'Dorian Gray,' and
Meredith's models for 'The Tragic Comedians' and 'Diana of the
Crossways' are well known.