dinner; the hostess enumerated some
very savoury ones, and he nodded briskly, assenting to everything. It
couldn't be, Longmore thought, that he found such ideal ease in the
prospect of lamb-chops and spinach and a croute aux fruits. When the
dinner had been ordered he turned up his sketch, and the good woman fell
to admiring and comparing, to picking up, off by the stream-side, the
objects represented.

Was it his work, Longmore wondered, that made him so happy? Was a
strong talent the best thing in the world? The landlady went back to
her kitchen, and the young painter stood, as if he were waiting for
something, beside the gate which opened upon the path across the fields.
Longmore sat brooding and asking himself if it weren't probably better
to cultivate the arts than to cultivate the passions. Before he had
answered the question the painter had grown tired of waiting. He had
picked up a pebble, tossed it lightly into an upper window and called
familiarly "Claudine!" Claudine appeared; Longmore heard her at the
window, bidding the young man cultivate patience. "But I'm losing
my light," he said; "I must have my shadows in the same place as
yesterday."

"Go without me then," Claudine answered; "I'll join you in ten minutes."
Her voice was fresh and young; it represented almost aggressively to
Longmore that she was as pleased as her companion.

"Don't forget the Chenier," cried the young man, who, turning away,
passed out of the gate and followed the path across the fields until
he disappeared among the trees by the side of the stream. Who might
Claudine be? Longmore vaguely wondered; and was she as pretty as her
voice? Before long he had a chance to satisfy himself; she came out of
the house with her hat and parasol, prepared to follow her companion.
She had on a pink muslin dress and a little white hat, and she was as
pretty as suffices almost any Frenchwoman to be pleasing. She had a
clear brown skin and a bright dark eye and a step that made walking as
light a matter as being blown--and this even though she happened to be
at the moment not a little over-weighted. Her hands were encumbered with
various articles involved in her pursuit of her friend. In one arm she
held her parasol and a large roll of needlework, and in the other a
shawl and a heavy white umbrella, such as painters use for sketching.
Meanwhile she was trying to thrust into her pocket a paper-covered
volume which Longmore saw to be the poems of An