aistcoats, dozed inside their boxes, while
Sherringham permitted himself a "pot" hat and rarely met a friend. Thus
was Miriam as islanded as the chained Andromeda, and thus was it
possible to deal with her, even Perseus-like, in deep detachment. The
theatres on the boulevard closed for the most part, but the great temple
of the Rue de Richelieu, with an esthetic responsibility, continued
imperturbably to dispense examples of style. Madame Carre was going to
Vichy, but had not yet taken flight, which was a great advantage for
Miriam, who could now solicit her attention with the consciousness that
she had no engagements _en ville_.

"I make her listen to me--I make her tell me," said the ardent girl, who
was always climbing the slope of the Rue de Constantinople on the shady
side, where of July mornings a smell of violets came from the moist
flower-stands of fat, white-capped _bouquetieres_ in the angles of
doorways. Miriam liked the Paris of the summer mornings, the clever
freshness of all the little trades and the open-air life, the cries, the
talk from door to door, which reminded her of the south, where, in the
multiplicity of her habitations, she had lived; and most of all, the
great amusement, or nearly, of her walk, the enviable baskets of the
laundress piled up with frilled and fluted whiteness--the certain
luxury, she felt while she passed with quick prevision, of her own dawn
of glory. The greatest amusement perhaps was to recognise the pretty
sentiment of earliness, the particular congruity with the hour, in the
studied, selected dress of the little tripping women who were taking the
day, for important advantages, while it was tender. At any rate she
mostly brought with her from her passage through the town good humour
enough--with the penny bunch of violets she always stuck in the front of
her dress--for whatever awaited her at Madame Carre's. She declared to
her friend that her dear mistress was terribly severe, giving her the
most difficult, the most exhausting exercises, showing a kind of rage
for breaking her in.

"So much the better," Sherringham duly answered; but he asked no
questions and was glad to let the preceptress and the pupil fight it out
together. He wanted for the moment to know as little as possible about
their ways together: he had been over-dosed with that knowledge while
attending at their second interview. He would send Madame Carre her
money--she was really most obliging--and in the mea