grin.

"Do you understand English, monsieur?" demanded Miss New Haven
suspiciously, remembering the freedom with which the personal merits and
defects of the French and Italian models were usually discussed in their
presence in the Anglo-Saxon tongue.

"A leetle, mademoiselle: I have lived in Londres during two years."

"As artists' model?"

"Oui, mademoiselle. I have made the Jesuses, the St. Johns and the
Judases for the great English artists teel I have ennuied myself
enormement."

"Why?"

"Because ze artists Anglaise are ze masters vairy difficile, not comme
les artists Francais. Zey demand zat ze model pose during two hours sans
repose, and zey nevvair give of to drink to ze model."

"Did you return to Paris when you ennuied yourself so enormement?" asked
a yellow-haired English girl who had painted countless vaporous and
ravishing Eurydices and filmy Echoes from broad-waisted, pug-nosed
Cockney models, and who always declared that she would recognize a
"professional" even among the shining hosts of heaven.

"Non, mademoiselle. I rested at Londres to make la musique."

"The music?"

"Comme ca;" and the Italian made sundry rotary motions of the arm, as if
grinding an invisible hand-organ.

[Illustration: THE ELDER SWEDE AND ARAMINTA SHODDY.]

"Did you earn more money with the music or as model?" asked Mademoiselle
Emilie, the girl-artist from Madrid, with black hair dyed golden, who
always swore by Murillo's Virgins, and who did her work dreamily, as if
the motions of her hands were timed to the languorous rhythm of some
far-off, daintily-touched guitar beneath vine-wreathed balcony and
starlit sky.

"In Londres I gained more money as musician. In Angleterre zere is not
mooch love of ze Christ, ze St. John and ze Judas. It is not a Catholic
country, comme la France, and ze Anglaises aime bettaire ze gods of ze
old Greek hommes. In la France zey aime ze true religion, and I gain
mooch money, and am in ze Salon many times evairy year, because I am ze
best Christ in Paris."

A wail swept up from French, American, English, Swedish, Spanish,
Norwegian, Russian and West Indian bosoms.

"_We'll_ embrace the religion and the gods of the old Greek hommes then,
or throw ourselves into the profoundest gulfs of infidelity, while we
remain in Paris," ejaculated Bostonia in a vigorous stage-aside.

"Have you a wife?" asked Madame Deschamps, a fashionable
portrait-painter.

"Oui, madame. Ma femme is Lucreza