The Yellow Sign & Other Stories

by Robert W. Chambers

  “Jesuits,” he muttered. “Well,”saidHastingswearily,“Iimaginewewon’tfindanything better. You say yourself that vice is triumphant in Paris, and it seems to me that in every street we find Jesuits or something worse.”

  After a moment he repeated, “Or something worse, which of course I would not notice except for your kindness in warning me.” Dr. Byram sucked in his lips and looked about him. He was impressed by the evident respectability of the surroundings. Then, frowning at the Convent he took Hastings’ arm and shuffled across the street to an iron gateway which bore the number 201 bis painted in white on a blue ground. Below this was a notice printed in English:

  1. For porter please oppress once.

  2. For Servant please oppress twice.

  3. For Parlor please oppress thrice.

  Hastings touched the electric button three times and they were ushered through the garden and into the parlor by a trim maid. The dining-room door, just beyond, was open, and from the table in plain view, a stout woman hastily arose and came toward them. Hastings caught a glimpse of a young man with a big head and several snuffy old gentlemen at breakfast, before the door closed and the stout woman waddled into the room, bringing with her an aroma of coffee and a black poodle.

  “It ees a plaisir to you receive!” she cried; “Monsieur is Anglish? No? Americain? Of course. My pension it ees for Americains surtout. Here all spik Angleesh, c’est à dire, ze personelle; ze sairvants do spik, plus ou moins, a little. I am happy to have you comme pensionaires—”

  “Madame,” began Dr. Byram, but was cut short again. “Ah, yess, I know, ah! mon Dieu! you do not spik Frainch but you have come to lairne! My husband does spik Frainch wiss le pensionaires. We have at ze moment a family Americaine who learn of my husband Frainch—”

  Here the poodle growled at Dr. Byram and was promptly cuffed by his mistress.

  “Veux tu!” she cried, with a slap, “veux tu! Oh! le vilain, oh! le vilain!”

  “Mais, Madame,” said Hastings smiling, “il n’a pas l’air tres féroce.”

  The poodle fled and his mistress cried, “Ah, ze accent charm- ing! He does spik already Frainch like a Parisien young gentleman!” Then Dr. Byram managed to get in a word or two and gathered more or less information in regard to prices.

  “It ees a pension serieux; my clientelle ess of ze best, indeed a pension de famille where one ees at ‘ome.” Then they went upstairs to examine Hastings’ future quarters, test the bed-springs and arrange for the weekly towel allowance. Dr. Byram appeared satisfied.

  Madame Marotte accompanied them to the door and rang for the maid, but as Hastings stepped out into the gravel walk, his guide and mentor paused a moment and fixed Madame with his watery eyes.

  “You understand,” he said, “that he is a youth of most careful bringing up, and his character and morals are without a stain. He is young and has never been abroad, never even seen a large city, and his parents have requested me, as an old family friend living in Paris, to see that he is placed under good influences. He is to study art, but on no account would his parents wish him to live in the Latin Quarter if they knew of the immorality which is rife there.”

  A sound like the click of a latch interrupted him and he raised his eyes, but not in time to see the maid slap the big-headed young man behind the parlor door.

  Madame coughed, cast a deadly glance behind her and then beamed on Dr. Byram.

  “It ees well zat he come here. The pension more serious, il n’en existe pas, eet ees not any!” she announced with conviction. So, as there was nothing more to add, Dr. Byram joined Hastings at the gate.

  “I trust,” he said, eyeing the Convent, “that you will make no acquaintances among Jesuits!” Hastings looked at the Convent until a pretty girl passed before the gray façade, and then he looked at her. A young fellow with a paint-box and canvas came swinging along, stopped before the pretty girl, said something during a brief but vigorous handshake at which they both laughed, and he went his way, calling back, “À demain Valentine!” as in the same breath she cried, “À demain!”

  “Valentine,” thought Hastings, “what a quaint name;” and he started to follow the Reverend Joel Byram who was shuffling toward the nearest tramway station.

  II “An’ you are pleas wiz Paris, Monsieur, ‘Astang?” demanded Madame Marotte the next morning as Hastings came into the breakfast-room of the pension, rosy from his plunge in the limited bath above.

  “I am sure I shall like it,” he replied, wondering at his own depression of spirits. The maid brought him coffee, and rolls. He returned the vacant glance of the big-headed young man and acknowledged diffi- dently the salutes of the snuffy old gentlemen. He did not try to finish his coffee and sat crumbling a roll, unconscious of the sympathetic glances of Madame Marotte who had tact enough not to bother him.

  Presently a maid entered with a tray on which was balanced two bowls of chocolate, and the snuffy old gentlemen leered at her ankles. The maid deposited the chocolate at a table near the window and smiled at Hastings. Then a thin young lady, followed by her counterpart in all except years, marched into the room and took the table near the window. They were evidently American, but Hastings, if he expected any sign of recognition, was disappointed. To be ignored by compatriots intensified his depression. He fumbled with his knife and looked at his plate.

  The thin young lady was talkative enough. She was quite aware of Hastings’presence, ready to be flattered if he looked at her, but on the other hand she felt her superiority for she had been three weeks in Paris and he, it was easy to see, had not yet unpacked his steamtrunk.

  Her conversation was complacent. She argued with her mother upon the relative merits of the Louvre and the Bon Marché but her mother’s part of the discussion was mostly confined to the observa- tion, “Why, Susie!”

  The snuffy old gentlemen had left the room in a body, outwardly polite and inwardly raging. The could not endure the Americans, who filled the room with their chatter.

  The big-headed young man looked after them with a knowing cough, murmuring, “Gay old birds!”

  To this Mr. Bladen smiled and said, “They’ve had their day,” in a tone which implied that he was not having his.

  “And that’s why they all have baggy eyes,” cried the girl. “I think it’s a shame for young gentlemen—”

  “Why, Susie,” said the mother, and the conversation lagged. After a while Mr. Bladen threw down the “Petit Journal,” which he daily studied at the expense of the house, and turning to Hastings started to make himself agreeable. He began by saying, “I see you are an American.”

  To this brilliant and original opening, Hastings, deadly homesick, replied gratefully, and the conversation was judiciously nourished by observations from Miss Susie Byng distinctly addressed to Mr. Bladen. In the course of events Miss Susie, forgetting to address herself exclusively to Mr. Bladen, and Hastings replying to her general question, the entente cordiale was established, and Susie and her mother extended a protectorate over what was clearly neutral territory.

  “Mr. Hastings, you must not desert the pension every evening as Mr. Bladen does. Paris is an awful place for young gentlemen, and Mr. Bladen is a horrid cynic.”

  Mr. Bladen looked gratified.

  Hastings answered, “I shall be at the studio all day, and I imagine I shall be glad enough to come back at night.” Mr. Bladen, who, at a salary of fifteen dollars a week, acted as agent for the Pewly Manufacturing Company of Troy, N.Y., smiled a skeptical smile and withdrew to keep an appointment with a customer on the Boulevard Magenta.

  Hastings walked into the garden with Mrs. Byng and Susie, and, at their invitation, sat down in the shade before the iron gate. The chestnut trees still bore their fragrant spikes of pink and white and the bees hummed among the roses, trellised on the whitewalled house.

  A faint freshness was in the air. The watering carts moved up and down the streets, and a clear stream bubbled over the spotless gutters of the rue de la Grande Chaumière
. The sparrows were merry along the curbstones, taking bath after bath in the water and ruffling their feathers with delight. In a walled garden across the street a pair of blackbirds whistled among the almond trees.

  Hastings swallowed the lump in his throat, for the song of the birds and the ripple of water in a Paris gutter brought back to him the sunny meadows of Millbrook.

  “That’s a blackbird,” observed Miss Byng; “see him there on the bush with pink blossoms. He’s all black except his bill, and that looks as if it had been dipped in an omelet, as some Frenchman says—”

  “Why, Susie!” said Mrs. Byng. “That garden belongs to a studio inhabited by two Americans,” continued the girl serenely, “and I often see them pass. They seem to need a great many models, mostly young and feminine—”

  “Why, Susie!” “Perhaps they prefer painting that kind, but I don’t see why they should invite five, with three more young gentlemen, and all get into two cabs and drive away singing. This street,” she continued, “is dull. There is nothing to see except the garden and a glimpse of the Boulevard Montparnasse through the rue de la Grande Chaumière. No one ever passes except a policeman. There is a convent on the corner.”

  “I thought it was a Jesuit College,” began Hastings, but was at once overwhelmed with a Baedecker description of the place, ending with, “on one side stand the palatial hotels of Jean Paul Laurens and Guillaume Bouguereau, and opposite, in the little Passage Stanislas, Carolus Duran paints the masterpieces which charm the world.”

  The blackbird burst into a ripple of golden throaty notes, and from some distant green spot in the city, an unknown wild-bird answered with a frenzy of liquid trills until the sparrows paused in their ablutions to look up with restless chirps.

  Then a butterfly came and sat on a cluster of heliotrope and waved his crimson-banded wings in the hot sunshine. Hastings knew him for a friend and before his eyes there came a vision of tall mullins and scented milkweed alive with painted wings, a vision of a white house and woodbine-covered piazza,—a glimpse of a man reading and a woman leaning over the pansy bed,—and his heart was full. He was startled a moment later by Miss Byng.

  “I believe you are homesick!” Hastings blushed. Miss Byng looked at him with a sympathetic sigh and continued: “Whenever I felt homesick at first I used to go with mamma and walk in the Lux- embourg Gardens. I don’t know why it is but those old-fashioned gardens seem to bring me nearer home than anything in this artificial city.”

  “But they are full of marble statues,” said Mrs. Byng mildly, “I don’t see the resemblance myself.”

  “Where is the Luxembourg?” inquired Hastings after a silence.

  “Come with me to the gate,” said Miss Byng. He rose and followed her, and she pointed out the rue Vavin at the foot of the street. “You pass by the convent to the right,” she smiled; and Hastings went.

  The Luxembourg was a blaze of flowers. He walked slowly through the long avenues of trees, past mossy marbles and old-time columns, and threading the grove by the bronze lion, came upon the tree-crowned terrace above the fountain. Below lay the basin shining in the sunlight: Flowering almonds encircled the terrace and in a greater spiral, groves of chestnuts wound in and out and down among the moist thickets by the western palace wing. At one end of the avenue of trees, the Observatory rose, its white domes piled up like an eastern mosque; at the other end stood the heavy palace, with every window-pane ablaze in the fierce sun of June.

  Around the fountain, children and white-capped nurses armed with bamboo poles, were pushing toy boats, whose sails hung limp in the sunshine. A park policeman, wearing red epaulettes and a dress sword, watched them for a while and then went away to remonstrate with a young man who had unchained his dog. The dog was pleasantly occupied in rubbing grass and dirt into his back while his legs waved in the air.

  The policeman pointed at the dog. He was speechless with indignation. “Well, Captain,” smiled the young fellow.

  “Well, Monsieur Student,” growled the policeman.

  “What do you come and complain to me for?”

  “If you don’t chain him I’ll take him,” shouted the policeman. “What’s that to me, mon capitaine?”

  “Wha—t! Isn’t that bull-dog yours?”

  “If it was, don’t you suppose I’d chain him?”

  The officer glared for a moment in silence, then deciding that as he was a student he was wicked, grabbed at the dog who promptly dodged.Around and around the flower-beds they raced, and when the officer came too near for comfort, the bull-dog cut across a flowerbed which perhaps was not playing fair.

  The young man was amused, and the dog also seemed to enjoy the exercise. The policeman noticed this and decided to strike at the fountainhead of the evil. He stormed up to the student and said, “As the owner of this public nuisance I arrest you!”

  “But,” objected the other, “I disclaim the dog.” That was a poser. It was useless to attempt to catch the dog until three gardeners lent a hand, but then the dog simply ran away and disappeared in the rue de Medici.

  The policeman shambled off to find consolation among the whitecapped nurses, and the student, looking at his watch, stood up yawning. Then catching sight of Hastings, he smiled and bowed. Hastings walked over to the marble, laughing.

  “Why, Clifford,” he said, “I didn’t recognized you.” “It’s my moustache,” sighed the other. “I sacrificed it to humor the whim of—of—a friend. What do you think of my dog?” “Then he is yours?” cried Hastings. “Of course. It’s a pleasant change for him, this playing tag with policemen, but he is known now and I’ll have to stop it. He’s gone home. He always does when the gardeners take a hand. It’s a pity; he’s fond of rolling on lawns.” Then they chatted for a moment of Hastings’ prospects, and Clifford politely offered to stand his sponsor at the studio.

  “You see, old tabby, I mean Dr. Byram told me about you before I met you,” explained Clifford, “and Elliott and I will be glad to do anything we can.” Then looking at his watch again he muttered, “I have just ten minutes to catch the Versailles train; au revoir,” and started to go, but catching sight of a girl advancing by the fountain took off his hat with a confused smile.

  “Why are you not at Versailles?” she said, with an almost imperceptible acknowledgment of Hastings’ presence.

  “I—I’m going,” murmured Clifford. For a moment they faced each other, and then Clifford, very red, stammered, “With you permission I have the honor of presenting to you my friend Monsieur Hastings.”

  Hastings bowed low. She smiled very sweetly, but there was something of malice in the quiet inclination of her small Parisienne head. “I could have wished,” she said, “that Monsieur Clifford might spare me more time when he brings with him so charming an American.”

  “Must—must I go, Valentine?” began Clifford.

  “Certainly,” she replied.

  Clifford took his leave with very bad grace, wincing, when she added, “And give my dearest love to Cécile!” As he disappeared in the rue d’Assas, the girl turned as if to go, but then suddenly remembering Hastings, looked at him and shook her head.

  “Monsieur Clifford is so perfectly hair-brained,” she smiled, “it is embarrassing sometimes. You have heard, of course, all about his success at the Salon?”

  He looked puzzled and she noticed it.

  “You have been to the Salon of course?”

  “Why no,” he answered, “I only arrived in Paris three days ago.”

  She seemed to pay little heed to his explanation, but continued: “Nobody imagined he had the energy to do anything good, but on varnishing day, the Salon was astonished by the entrance of Monsieur Clifford, who strolled about as bland as you please with an orchid in his buttonhole, and a beautiful picture on the line.”

  She smiled to herself at the reminiscence, and looked at the fountain. “Monsieur Bouguereau told me that Monsieur Julian was so astonished that he only shook hands with Monsieur Clifford in a dazed manner, and
actually forgot to pat him on the back! Fancy,” she continued with much merriment, “fancy papa Julian forgetting to pat one on the back.”

  Hastings, wondering at her acquaintance with the great Bouguereau, looked at her with respect. “May I ask, he said diffidently, “whether you are a pupil of Monsieur Bouguereau?”

  “I,” she said in some surprise. Then she looked at him curiously. Was he permitting himself the liberty of joking on such short acquaintance?

  His pleasant serious face questioned hers.

  “Tiens,” she thought, “what a droll man.”

  “You surely study art?” he said.

  She leaned back on the crooked stick of her parasol, and looked at him. “Why did you think so?” “Because you speak as if you did.”

  “You are making fun of me,” she said, “and it is not good taste.” She stopped confused, as he colored to the roots of his hair. “How long have you been in Paris?” she said at length. “Three days,” he replied gravely.

  “But—but—surely you are not a nouveau! You speak French too well!” Then after a pause, “Really are you a nouveau?”

  “I am,” he said.

  She sat down on the marble bench lately occupied by Clifford, and tilting her parasol over her small head looked at him. “I don’t believe it.” He felt the compliment, and for a moment hesitated to declare himself one of the despised. Then mustering up his courage, he told her how new and green he was, and all with a frankness which made her blue eyes open very wide and her lips part in the sweetest of smiles.

  “You have never seen a studio?”

  “Never.”

  “Nor a model?”

  “No.”

  “How funny,” she said solemnly. Then they both laughed. “And you,” he said, “have seen studios?”