A Son of the Immortals

by Louis Tracy

  Produced by D Alexander and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive)

  A Son of the Immortals

  By LOUIS TRACY

  Author of "The Stowaway," "The Message," "The Wings of the Morning," etc.

  Illustrations by HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY

  New York Edward J. Clode Publisher

  Copyright, 1909, by EDWARD J. CLODE

  Entered at Stationers' Hall

  The sight of Alec and his fair burden brought a cheer from the crowd Frontispiece]

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I. THE FORTUNE TELLER 1 II. MONSEIGNEUR 22 III. IN THE ORIENT EXPRESS 44 IV. THE WHITE CITY 64 V. FELIX SURMOUNTS A DIFFICULTY 89 VI. JOAN GOES INTO SOCIETY 112 VII. JOAN BECOMES THE VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCES 132 VIII. SHOWING HOW THE KING KEPT HIS APPOINTMENT 154 IX. MUTTERINGS OF STORM 176 X. WHEREIN THE SHADOWS DEEPEN 196 XI. JOAN DECIDES 221 XII. THE STORM BREAKS 241 XIII. WHEREIN A REASON IS GIVEN FOR JOAN'S FLIGHT 263 XIV. THE BROKEN TREATY 284 XV. THE ENVOY 310

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  The sight of Alec and his fair burden brought a cheer from the crowd _Frontispiece_

  PAGE

  "Gentlemen, here stands Alexis Delgrado" 75 Beaumanoir and Felix fortified the position 153 Joan laughed at Alec's masterful methods 199 Stampoff saluted the King in silence 268 In a few minutes the three were securely bound 298 He felt the thrill that ran through her veins 306

  A SON OF THE IMMORTALS

  CHAPTER I

  THE FORTUNE TELLER

  On a day in May, not so long ago, Joan Vernon, coming out into thesunshine from her lodging in the Place de la Sorbonne, smiled a morninggreeting to the statue of Auguste Comte, founder of Positivism. It wouldhave puzzled her to explain what Positivism meant, or why it should bemerely positive and not stoutly comparative or grandly superlative. As ateacher, therefore, Comte made no appeal. She just liked the bland lookof the man, was pleased by the sleekness of his white marble. He seemedto be a friend, a counselor, strutting worthily on a pedestal labeled"_Ordre et Progres_"; for Joan was an artist, not a philosopher.

  Perhaps there was an underthought that she and Comte were odd fish to beat home together in that placid backwater of the Latin Quarter. Nextdoor to the old-fashioned house in which she rented three rooms was acabaret, a mere wreck of a wineshop, apparently cast there by thetorrent of the Boule Mich, which roared a few yards away. Its luminoussign, a foaming tankard, showed gallantly by night, but was garish byday, since gas is akin to froth, to which the sun is pitiless. But thecabaret had its customers, quiet folk who gathered in the evening togossip and drink strange beverages, whereas its nearest neighbor on theboulevard side was an empty tenement, a despondent ghost to-day, thoughonce it had rivaled the flaunting tankard. Its frayed finery told of gaysparks extinguished. A flamboyant legend declared, "Ici on chante, onboit, on s'amuse(?)" Joan always smirked a little at that suggestivenote of interrogation, which lent a world of meaning to thehalf-obliterated statement that Madame Lucette would appear "tous lessoirs dans ses chansons d'actualites."

  Nodding to Leontine, the cabaret's amazingly small maid of all work, whowas always washing and never washed, Joan saw the query for thehundredth time, and, as ever, found its answer in the blistered paintand dust covered windows: Madame Lucette's last song of real lifepointed a moral.

  Joan's bright face did not cloud on that account. Paul Verlaine, takingthe air in the Boulevard Saint Michel, had he chanced to notice the dryhusk of that Cabaret Latin, might have composed a chanson on the vanityof dead cafes; but this sprightly girl had chosen her residence therechiefly because it marched with her purse. Moreover, it was admirablysuited to the needs of one who for the most part gave her days to theLouvre and her evenings to the Sorbonne.

  She was rather late that morning. Lest that precious hour of white lightshould be lost, she sped rapidly across the place, down the boulevard,and along the busy Quai des Grands Augustins. On the Pont Neuf sheglanced up at another statuesque acquaintance, this time a kinglypersonage on horseback. She could never quite dispel the notion thatHenri Quatre was ready to flirt with her. The roguish twinkle in hisbronze eye was very taking, and there were not many men in Paris whocould look at her in that way and win a smile in return. To be sure, itwas no new thing for a Vernon to be well disposed toward Henry ofNavarre; but that is ancient history, and our pretty Joan, blithelyunconscious, was hurrying that morning to take an active part inredrafting the Berlin treaty.

  At the corner of the bridge, where it joins the Quai du Louvre, she meta young man. Each pretended that the meeting was accidental, though,after the first glance, the best-natured recording angel evercommissioned from Paradise would have refused to believe either of them.

  "What a piece of luck!" cried the young man. "Are you going to theLouvre?"

  "Yes. And you?" demanded Joan, flushing prettily.

  "I am killing time till the afternoon, when I play Number One for theWanderers. To-day's match is at Bagatelle."

  She laughed. "'Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speechbetrayeth thee,'" she quoted.

  "I don't quite follow that, Miss Vernon."

  "No? Well, I'll explain another time. I must away to my copying."

  "Let me come and fix your easel. Really, I have nothing else to do."

  "Worse and worse! En route, _alors_! You can watch me at work. That mustbe a real pleasure to an idler."

  "I am no idler," he protested.

  "What? Who spoke but now of 'killing time,' 'play,' 'Number One,' and'Bagatelle'? Really, Mr. Delgrado!"

  "Oh, is that what you are driving at? But you misunderstood. Bagatelleis near the polo ground in the Bois, and, as Number One in my team, Ishall have to hustle. Four stiff chukkers at polo are downright hardwork, Miss Vernon. By teatime I shall be a limp rag. I promised to playnearly a month ago, and I cannot draw back now."

  "Polo is a man's game, at any rate," she admitted.

  "Would you care to see to-day's tie?" he asked eagerly. "We meetChantilly, and, if we put them out in the first round of the tournament,with any ordinary luck we ought to run right into the semi-final."

  She shook her head. "You unhappy people who have to plan and scheme howbest to waste your hours have no notion of their value. I must worksteadily from two till five. That means a sixteenth of my picture.Divide two hundred and fifty by sixteen, and you have--dear me! I am nogood at figures."

  "Fifteen francs, sixty-two and a half centimes," said he promptly.

  She flashed a surprised look at him. "That is rather clever of you," shesaid. "Well, fancy a poor artist sacrificing all that money in order towatch eight men galloping after a white ball and whacking it and eachother's ponies unmercifully."

  "To hit an adversary's pony is the unforgivable sin," he cried, smilingat her, and she hastily averted her eyes, having discovered an unnervingsimilarity between his smile and--Henri Quatre's!

  They walked on in eloquent silence. The man was cudgeling
his brains foran excuse whereby he might carry her off in triumph to the Bois. Thegirl was fighting down a new sensation that threatened her independence.Never before had she felt tonguetied in the presence of an admirer. Shehad dismissed dozens of them. She refrained now from sending thisgood-looking boy packing only because it would be cruel, and Joan Vernoncould not be cruel to anyone. Nevertheless, she had to justify herselfas a free lance, and it is the role of a lance to attack rather thandefend.

  "What do you occupy yourself with when you are not playing polo orlounging about artists' studios?" she asked suddenly.

  "Not much, I am afraid. I like shooting and hunting; but these Frenchmenhave no backbone for sport. Will you believe it, one has the greatestdifficulty in getting a good knock at polo unless there is a crowd ofladies on the lawn?"

  "Ah! I begin to see light."

  "That is not the reason I asked you to come. If you honored me sogreatly you would be the first woman, my mother excepted, I have everdriven to the club. To-day's players are mostly Americans or English. Ofcourse there are some first-rate French teams; but you can take it fromme that they show their real form only before the ladies."

  "As in the tourneys of old?"

  "Perhaps. It is the same at the chateaux. Everyone wants his best girlto watch his prowess with the gun."

  He stopped, wishing he had left the best girl out of it; but Joan waskind hearted and did not hesitate an instant.

  "So you are what is known as a gentleman of leisure and independentmeans?" she said suavely.

  "Something of the sort."

  "I am sorry for you, Mr. Delgrado."

  "I am rather sorry for myself at times," he admitted, and if Joan hadchanced to glance at him she would have seen a somewhat peculiarexpression on his face. "But why do you call me Mr. Delgrado?"

  She gazed at him now in blank bewilderment--just a second too late tosee that expression. "Isn't Delgrado your name?" she asked.

  "Yes, in a sense. People mostly call me Alec. Correctly speaking, Alecisn't mother's darling for Alexis; but it goes, anyhow."

  "Sometimes I think you are an American," she vowed.

  "Half," he said. "My mother is an American, my father a Kosnovian--well,just a Kosnovian."

  "And pray what is that?" she cried.

  "Haven't you heard of Kosnovia? It is a little Balkan State."

  "Is there some mystery, then, about your name?"

  "Oh, no; plain Alec."

  "Am I to call you plain Alec?"

  "Yes."

  "But it follows that you would call me plain Joan."

  "Let it go at Joan."

  "Very well. Good morning, Alec."

  "No, no, Miss Vernon. Don't be vexed. I really did not mean to be rude.And you promised, you know."

  "Promised what?"

  "That I might help carry your traps. Please don't send me away!"

  He was so contrite that Joan weakened again. "It is rather friendly tohear one's Christian name occasionally," she declared. "I will compoundon the Alec if you will tell me why the Delgrado applies only in asense."

  "Done--Joan," said he, greatly daring. He waited the merest fraction oftime; but she gave no sign. "My stipulation is of the slightest," headded, "that I discourse in the Louvre. Where are you working?"

  "In the Grande Galerie; on a subject that I enjoy, too. People have suchodd notions as to nice pictures. They choose them to match thefurniture. Now, this one is quite delightful to copy, and not verydifficult. But you shall see."

  They entered the Louvre from the Quai.

  Joan was undoubtedly flurried. Here, in very truth, was thatirrepressible Henri descended from his bronze horse and walking by herside. That his later name happened to be Alec did not matter at all. Sheknew that a spiteful Bourbon had melted down no less than two statues ofNapoleon in order to produce the fine cavalier who approved of her everytime she crossed the Pont Neuf, and it seemed as if some of the littleCorsican's dominance was allied with a touch of Bearnais swagger in thestalwart youth whom she had met for the first time in Rudin's studioabout three weeks earlier.

  They were steel and magnet at once. Delgrado had none of theboulevardier's abounding self-conceit, or Joan would never have givenhim a second look, while Joan's frank comradeship was vastly morealluring than the skilled coquetry that left him cold. Physically, too,they were well mated, each obviously made for the other by adiscriminating Providence. They were just beginning to discover thefact, and this alarmed Joan.

  She could not shake off the notion that he had waylaid her this morningfor a purpose wholly unconnected with the suggested visit to the pologround. So, tall and athletic though he was, she set such a pace up thesteps and through the lower galleries that further intimate talk becameimpossible. Atalanta well knew what she was about when she ran hersuitors to death, and Meilanion showed a deep insight into human naturewhen he arranged that she should loiter occasionally.

  Delgrado, however, had no golden apples to drop in Joan's path, couldnot even produce a conversational plum; but he was young enough tobelieve in luck, and he hoped that fortune might favor him, once thepainting was in hand.

  Each was so absorbed in the other that the Louvre might have been empty.Certainly, neither of them noticed that a man crossing the Pont duCarrousel in an open cab seemed to be vastly surprised when he saw themhastening through the side entrance. He carried his interest to thepoint of stopping the cab and following them. Young, clear skinned,black-haired, exceedingly well dressed, with the eyes and eyelashes ofan Italian tenor, he moved with an air of distinction, and showed thathe was no stranger to the Louvre by his rapid decision that the Salledes Moulages, with its forbidding plaster casts, was no likely restingplace for Delgrado and his pretty companion.

  Making straight for the nearest stairs, he almost blundered upon Alec,laden with Joan's easel and canvas; but this exquisite, having somethingof the spy's skill, whisked into an alcove, scrutinized an old print,and did not emerge until the chance of being recognized had passed.After that, he was safe. He appeared to be amused, even somewhat amazed,when he learned why Delgrado was patronizing the arts. Yet the discoverywas evidently pleasing. He caressed a neat, black mustache with awell-manicured hand, while taking note of Joan's lithe figure and wellpoised head. The long, straight vista of the gallery did not permit of anear view, and he could not linger in the narrow doorway, used chieflyby artists and officials, whence he watched them for a minute or more.

  So he turned on his heel and descended to the street and his waitingvictoria, waving that delicate hand and smiling with the manner of onewho said, "Fancy that of Alec! The young scamp!"

  Joan was copying Caravaggio's "The Fortune Teller," a masterpiece thatspeaks in every tongue, to every age. Its keynote is simplicity. Agallant of Milan, clothed in buff-colored doublet slashed with brownvelvet, a plumed cavalier hat set rakishly on his head, and a laceruffle caught up with a string of seed pearls round his neck, is holdingout his right palm to a Gypsy woman, while the fingers of his left handrest on a swordhilt. The woman is young and pretty, her subject a mereboy, and her smug aspect of divination is happily contrasted with theyouth's excitement at hearing what fate has in store.

  "There!" cried Joan. "What do you think of it?"

  She had almost completed the Gypsy, and there was already a suggestionof the high lights in the youngster's face and his brightly coloredgarb.

  "I like your copy more than the original," said Delgrado.

  "Your visits to Rudin have not taught you much about art, then," saidshe tartly.

  "Not even that great master would wish me to be insincere."

  "No, indeed; but he demands knowledge at the back of truth. Now, markme! You see that speck of white fire in the corner of the woman's eye?It gives life, intelligence, subtle character. Just a little blob ofpaint, put there two hundred years ago, yet it conveys the whole stockin trade of the fortune teller. Countless numbers of men and women havegazed at that picture, a multitude that must have covered the wholerang
e of human virtues and vices; but it has never failed to carry thesame message to every beholder. Do you think that my poor reproductionwill achieve that?"

  "You have chosen the only good bit in the painting," he declaredstoutly. "Look at the boy's lips. Caravaggio must have modeled them froma girl's. What business has a fellow with pouting red lips like them towear a sword on his thigh?"

  Joan laughed with joyousness that was good to hear.

  "Pooh! Run away and smite that ball with a long stick!" she said.

  "Hum! More than the Italian could have done."

  He was ridiculously in earnest. Joan colored suddenly and busied herselfwith tubes of paint. She believed he was jealous of the handsomeLombard. She began to mix some pigments on the palette. Delgrado,already regretting an inexplicable outburst, turned from the picture andlooked at Murillo's "woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under herfeet, and upon her head a diadem of twelve stars."

  "Now, please help me to appreciate that and you will find me a willingstudent," he murmured.

  But Joan had recovered her self-possession. "Suppose we come off thehigh art ladder and talk of our uninteresting selves," she said. "Whatof the mystery you hinted at on the Quai? Why shouldn't I call you Mr.Delgrado? One cannot always say 'Alec,' it's too short."

  Then he reddened with confusion. "Delgrado is my name, right enough," hesaid. "It is the prefix I object to. It implies that I am sailing underfalse colors, and I don't like that."

  "I am not good at riddles, and I suspect prefix," she cried.

  "Ah, well, I suppose I must get through with it. Have you forgotten howRudin introduced me?"

  She knitted her brows for a moment. Pretty women should cultivate thetrick, unless they fear wrinkles. It gives them the semblance of lookingin on themselves, and the habit is commendable. "Rudin is fond of hislittle joke," she announced at last.

  "But--what did he say?"

  "Oh, there was some absurdity. He addressed me as if I were a royalpersonage, and asked to be allowed to present his Serene Highness PrinceAlexis Delgrado."

  The man smiled constrainedly. "It sounds rather nonsensical, doesn'tit?" he said.

  "Rudin often invents titles. I have heard efforts much more amusing."

  "That is when he is original. Unfortunately, in my case, he was merelyaccurate."

  Joan whirled round on him. "Are you a Prince?" she gasped, each wordmarking a crescendo of wonder.

  "Yes--Joan."

  "But what am I to do? What am I to say? Must I drop on one knee and kissyour hand?"

  "I cannot help it," he growled. "And I was obliged to tell you. Youwould have been angry with me if I had kept it hidden from you. Oh, dashit all, Joan, don't laugh! That is irritating."

  "My poor Alec! Why did they make you a Prince?"

  "I was born that way. My father is one. Do you mean to say you havelived in Paris a year and have never seen our names in the newspapers?My people gad about everywhere. The Prince and Princess MichaelDelgrado, you know."

  "I do not know," said Joan deliberately.

  Her alert brain was slowly assimilating this truly astonishingdiscovery. She did not attempt to shirk its significance, and her firstthought was to frame some excuse to abandon work for the day; since, nomatter what the cost to herself, this friendship must go no farther. Thedecision caused a twinge; but she did not flinch, for Joan would alwaysvisit the dentist rather than endure toothache. She could not dismiss aSerene Highness merely because he declared his identity, nor was sheminded to forget his rank because she had begun to call him Alec. But ithurt. She was conscious of a longing to be alone. If not in love, shewas near it, and hard-working artists must not love Serene Highnesses.

  Delgrado was watching her with a glowering anxiety that itself carried awarning. "You see, Joan, I had to tell you," he repeated. "People makesuch a fuss about these empty honors----"

  Joan caught at a straw. She hoped that a display of sarcastic humormight rescue her. "Honors!" she broke in, and she laughed almostshrilly, for her voice was naturally sweet and harmonious. "Is it anhonor, then, to be born a Prince?"

  "If a man is worth his salt, the fact that he is regarded as a Princeshould make him princely."

  "That is well said. Try and live up to it. You will find it a task,though, to regulate your life by copybook maxims."

  "The princedom is worth nothing otherwise. In its way, it is a handicap.Most young fellows of my age have some sort of career before them, whileI--I really am what you said I was, an idler. I didn't like the tauntfrom your lips; but it was true. Well, I am going to change all that. Iam tired of posturing as one of Daudet's 'Kings in Exile.' We expelledpotentates all live in Paris; that is the irony of it. I want to becandid with you, Joan. I have seen you every day since we met atRudin's; but I did not dare to meet you too often lest you should sendme away. You have given me a purpose in life. You have created a sort ofhunger in me, and I refuse to be satisfied any longer with the easygoingexistence of the last few years. No, you must hear me out. No matterwhat you say now, the new order of things is irrevocable. I almostquarreled with my father last night; but I told him plainly that I meantto make a place for myself in the world. At any rate, I refuse to livethe life he lives, and I am here to-day because the awakening is due toyou, Joan."

  A tremor ran through the girl's limbs; but she faced him bravely. Thoughher lips quivered, she forced herself to utter words that sounded like ajibe. "I am to play Pallas Athene to your Perseus," she said, and itseemed to him for a moment that she was in a mood to jest at heroics.

  "If you mean that I regard you as my goddess, I am well content," heanswered quickly.

  "Ah, but wait. Pallas Athene came to Perseus in a dream, and let us makebelieve that we are dreaming now. She had great gray eyes, clear andpiercing, and she knew all thoughts of men's hearts and the secrets oftheir souls. My eyes are not gray, Alec, nor can they pierce as hers;but I can borrow her beautiful words, and tell you that she turns herface from the creatures of clay. They may 'fatten at ease like sheep inthe pasture, and eat what they did not sow, like oxen in the stall. Theygrow and spread, like the gourd along the ground; but, like the gourd,they give no shade to the traveler, and when they are ripe death gathersthem, and they go down unloved into hell, and their name vanishes out ofthe land.' But to the souls of fire she gives more fire, and to thosewho are manful she gives a power more than man's. These are her heroes,the sons of the Immortals. They are blest, but not as the men who liveat ease. She drives them forth 'by strange paths ... through doubt andneed and danger and battle.... Some of them are slain in the flower oftheir youth, no man knows when or where, and some of them win noblenames and a fair and green old age.' Not even the goddess herself cantell the hap that shall befall them; for each man's lot is known only toZeus. Have you reflected well on these things, Alec? Be sure ofyourself! There may be Gorgons to encounter, and monsters of the deep."

  He came very near to her. Her eyes were glistening. For one glowingsecond they looked into each other's hearts.

  "And perhaps a maiden chained to a rock to be rescued," he whispered.

  Then she drew herself up proudly. "Do not forget that I am PallasAthene," she said. "My shield of brass is an easel and my mighty spear amahl-stick; but--I keep to my role, Alec."

  He longed to clasp her in his arms; but it flashed upon him with aninspiration from topmost Olympus that, all unwittingly, she had boundherself to his fortunes.

  "Then I leave it at that," he said quietly.

  This sudden air of confidence was bewildering. She had been swept offher feet by emotion, and the very considerations she thought she hadconquered were now tugging at her heart-strings. He must not go away asher knight errant, eager and ready to slay dragons for her sake.

  "Do not misunderstand me," she faltered. "I was only quoting a passagefrom one of Kingsley's Greek fairy tales that has always had a peculiarfascination for me."

  "I'll get that story and read it. But I am interfering with your work,and here comes yo
ur friend, the Humming Bee. If he said anything funnyto me just now, I should want to strangle him. So good-by, dear Joan. Iwill turn up again to-morrow and tell you how I fared in each round."

  And he was gone, leaving her breathless and shaken; for well she knewthat he held her pledged to unspoken vows, that his eager confidenceswould apply alike to the day's sport and his future life. With handsthat trembled she essayed a further mixing of colors; but she scarcelyrealized what she was doing, until a queer, cracked voice that yet wasmusical sang softly in German at her elbow:

  If the Song should chance to wander Forth the Minstrel too must go.

  It was passing strange that crooked little Felix Poluski, ex-Nihilist,the wildest firebrand ever driven out of Warsaw, and the only livingartist who could put on canvas the gleam of heaven that lights theVirgin's face in the "Immaculate Conception," should justify hisnickname of Le Bourdon by humming those two lines.

  "I hope you are not a prophet, Felix," said Joan with a catch in herthroat.

  "No, _ma belle_, no prophet, merely an avenger, a slayer of Kings. I seeyou have just routed one."

  She turned and looked into the deepset eyes of the old hunchback, andfor the first time noted that they were gray and very bright andpiercing. At the same time the fancy crossed her mind that perhaps HenriQuatre had had blue eyes, bold yet tender, like unto Alec's.

  "So you too are aware that Monsieur Delgrado is a Prince?" she said,letting her thought bubble forth at random.

  "Some folk call him that, and it is the worst thing I know of him sofar. It may spoil him in time; but at present I find him a nice youngman."

  Joan swung round to her picture. "If Alec had the chance of becoming aKing, he would be a very good one," she said loyally.

  Poluski's wizened cheeks puckered into a grin. He glanced at the easeland thence to the picture on the wall.

  "Perfectly, my dear Joan," he said. "And, by the bones of Kosciusko, youhave chosen a proper subject, The Fortune Teller! Were you filling ourwarrior with dreams of empire? Well, well, I don't know which is morepotent with monarchs, woman or dynamite. In Alec's case I fancy I shouldbet on the woman. Here, for example, is one that shook Heaven, and Ihave always thought that Eve was not given fair treatment, or she wouldsurely have twisted the serpent's tail," and, humming the refrain of"Les Demi-Vierges," he climbed the small platform he had erected infront of the world famous Murillo.

  Back to back, separated by little more than half the width of thegallery, Joan and Poluski worked steadily for twenty minutes. The Polesang to himself incessantly, now bassooning between his thin lips themotif of some rhapsody of Lizst's, now murmuring the words of somecatchy refrain from the latest review. Anybody else who so transgressedthe rules would have been summarily turned out by the guards; but themen knew him, and the Grande Galerie, despite its treasures, or perhapsbecause of them, is the least popular part of the Louvre. Artists hauntit; but the Parisian, the provincial, the globe trotter, gape once intheir lives at Andrea del Sarto, Titian, Salvator Rosa, Murillo ofcourse, and the rest of the mighty dead, and then ask with a yawn,"Where are the Crown Jewels?"

  So the Humming Bee annoyed none by his humming; but he stopped short inan improvised variation on the theme of Vulcan's song in "Philemon andBaucis" when he heard a subdued but none the less poignant cry ofdistress from Joan. In order to turn his head he was compelled to twisthis ungainly body, and Joan, who was standing well away from her canvas,was aware of the movement. She too turned.

  "I am going," she announced. "I cannot do anything right to-day. Justlook at that white feather!"

  "Where?"

  "In the boy's hat, you tease! Where else would you look?"

  "In your face, _belle mignonne_," said the Pole.

  It was true. Joan was not ill; but she was undeniably low spirited, andthe artist's mood has a way of expressing itself on the palette. Shelaughed, with a certain sense of effort.

  "I like you best when you sing, Felix. Sometimes, when you speak, youare Infelix."

  "By all means go home," he grinned. "One cannot both joke and copy aCaravaggio."

  He began to paint with feverish industry, did not look at her again, buttossed an adieu over his humped shoulder when she hurried away. Then hegazed reproachfully, almost vindictively, at the uplifted eyes of thetransfigured Virgin.

  "Now, you!" he growled. "Vous etes benie entre toutes les femmes! Thisaffair is in your line. Why don't you help? _Saperlotte!_ The girl isworth it."