the sun rises. But her grey head was erect, her broad back
straight, and the regard of her eyes serene and untroubled always.
She was waiting for the hour when the Consul would be accessible; he
was the son of her dearest friend.

"And I must not forget," she told herself--"I really must not forget
to attend to that hotel man."

VII

THE MASTER

Papa Musard, whenever he felt that he was about to die, which
happened three times a year at least, would beckon as with a finger
from the grimy Montmartre tenement in which he abode and call Rufin
to come and bid him farewell. The great artist always came; he never
failed to show himself humble to humble people, and, besides, Papa
Musard had known Corot--or said that he had--and in his capacity of a
model had impressed his giant shoulders and its beard on the work of
three generations of painters.

The boy who carried the summons sat confidently on the kerb outside
the restaurant at which Rufin was used to lunch, and rose to his feet
as the tall, cloaked figure turned the corner of the street and
approached along the sunlit pavement.

"Monsieur Musard said you would be here at one o'clock," he
explained, presenting the note.

"Then it is very fortunate that I am not late," said Rufin politely,
accepting it. "But how did you know me?"

The boy--he was aged perhaps twelve--gave a sophisticated shrug.

"Monsieur Musard said: 'At one o'clock there will approach an artist
with the airs of a gentleman. That is he.'"

Rufin laughed and opened the note. While he read it the boy watched
him with the admiration which, in Paris, even the rat-like gamin of
the streets pays to distinction such as his. He was a tall man
splendidly blonde, and he affected the cloak, the slouch hat, the
picturesque amplitude of hair which were once the uniform of the
artist. But these, in his final effect, were subordinate to 'a
certain breadth and majesty of brow, a cast of countenance at once
benign and austere, as though the art he practiced so supremely both
exacted much and conferred much. He made a fine and potent figure as
he stood, with his back to the bright street and the gutter-child
standing beside him like a familiar companion, and read the smudged
scrawl of Papa Musard.

"So Musard is very ill again, is he?" he asked of the boy. "Have you
seen him yourself?"

"Oh yes," replied the boy; "I have seen him. He lies in bed and his
temper is frightful."

"He is a very old man, y