oldier, with his elbows on his knees and
his bearded cheeks resting on his doubled fists. Beside him on the sofa,
nursing a doll, was a little girl, who looked up at Noel. She had a most
strange, attractive, pale little face, with pointed chin and large eyes,
which never moved from this apparition in grey rabbits' skins.

"Ah, Barra! You here!" said the painter:

"Mademoiselle, this is Monsieur Barra, a friend of ours from the front;
and this is our landlady's little girl. A little refugee, too, aren't
you, Chica?"

The child gave him a sudden brilliant smile and resumed her grave
scrutiny of the visitor. The soldier, who had risen heavily, offered
Noel one of his podgy hands, with a sad and heavy giggle.

"Sit down, mademoiselle," said Lavendie, placing a chair for her: "I will
bring my wife in," and he went out through some double doors.

Noel sat down. The soldier had resumed his old attitude, and the little
girl her nursing of the doll, though her big eyes still watched the
visitor. Overcome by strangeness, Noel made no attempt to talk. And
presently through the double doors the painter and his wife came in. She
was a thin woman in a red wrapper, with hollow cheeks, high cheek-bones,
and hungry eyes; her dark hair hung loose, and one hand played restlessly
with a fold of her gown. She took Noel's hand; and her uplifted eyes
seemed to dig into the girl's face, to let go suddenly, and flutter.

"How do you do?" she said in English. "So Pierre brought you, to see me
again. I remember you so well. You would not let him paint you. Ah!
que c'est drole! You are so pretty, too. Hein, Monsieur Barra, is not
mademoiselle pretty?"

The soldier gave his heavy giggle, and resumed his scrutiny of the floor.

"Henriette," said Lavendie, "sit down beside Chica--you must not stand.
Sit down, mademoiselle, I beg."

"I'm so sorry you're not well," said Noel, and sat down again.

The painter stood leaning against the wall, and his wife looked up at his
tall, thin figure, with eyes which had in them anger, and a sort of
cunning.

"A great painter, my husband, is he not?" she said to Noel. "You would
not imagine what that man can do. And how he paints--all day long; and
all night in his head. And so you would not let him paint you, after
all?"

Lavendie said impatiently: "Voyons, Henriette, causez d'autre chose."

His wife plucked nervously at a fold in her red gown, and gave him the
look of a dog tha