n alternate French and English.
'I could stop and kiss them all--the men, the women, the very
pavement. Oh, Paris! Oh, these good, gay, kind Parisians! Look at the
sky! Look at the view--down that impasse--the sunlight and shadows on
the houses, the doorways, the people. Oh, the air! Oh, the smells! Que
c'est bon--que je suis contente! Et dire que j'ai passe cinq mois,
mais cinq grands mois, en Angleterre. Ah, veinard, you--you don't know
how you're blessed.' Presently we found ourselves labouring knee-deep
in a wave of black pinafores, and Nina had plucked her bunch of
violets from her breast, and was dropping them amongst eager fingers
and rosy cherubic smiles. And it was constantly, 'Tiens, there's
Madame Chose in her kiosque. Bonjour, madame. Vous allez toujours
bien?' and 'Oh, look! old Perronet standing before his shop in his
shirt-sleeves, exactly as he has stood at this hour every day, winter
or summer, these ten years. Bonjour, M'sieu Perronet.' And you may be
sure that the kindly French Choses and Perronets returned her
greetings with beaming faces. 'Ah, mademoiselle, que c'est bon de vous
revoir ainsi. Que vous avez bonne mine!' 'It is so strange,' 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 without 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