into one of those dumb activities by which true artists escape from
themselves and from everything that surrounds them.

Jenkins paced a few steps in the studio, much moved, with avowals on
the tip of his tongue which yet dared not put themselves into words. At
length, feeling himself dismissed, he took his hat and walked towards
the door.

"So it is understood. I must bring him to see you."

"Who?"

"Why, the Nabob. It was you who this very moment----"

"Ah, yes," remarked the strange person whose caprices were short-lived.
"Bring him if you like. I don't care, otherwise."

And her beautiful dejected voice, in which something seemed broken, the
listlessness of her whole personality, said distinctly enough that it
was true, that she cared really for nothing in the world.

Jenkins left the room, extremely troubled, and with a gloomy brow. But,
the moment he was outside, he assumed once more his laughing and cordial
expression, being of those who, in the streets, go masked. The morning
was advancing. The mist, still perceptible in the vicinity of the Seine,
floated now only in shreds and gave a vaporous unsubstantiality to
the houses on the quay, to the river steamers whose paddles remained
invisible, to the distant horizon in which the dome of the Invalides
hung poised like a gilded balloon with a rope that darted sunbeams. A
diffused warmth, the movement in the streets, told that noon was not far
distant, that it would be there directly with the striking of all the
bells.

Before going on to the Nabob's, Jenkins had, however, one other visit to
make. But he appeared to find it a great nuisance. However, since he had
made the promise! And, resolutely:

"68 Rue Saint-Ferdinand, at the Ternes," he said, as he sprang into his
carriage.

The address required to be repeated twice to the coachman, Joey, who
was scandalized; the very horse showed a momentary hesitation, as if the
valuable beast and the impeccably clad servant had felt revolt at the
idea of driving out to such a distant suburb, beyond the limited but
so brilliant circle wherein their master's clients were scattered.
The carriage arrived, all the same, without accident, at the end of a
provincial-looking, unfinished street, and at the last of its buildings,
a house of unfurnished apartments with five stories, which the street
seemed to have despatched forward as a reconnoitring party to discover
whether it might continue on that side isolated as it s