empty drawing-room hearth, with her
arms stretched out as if there had been a fire there.

"I've been away. How are you going to paint me, monsieur?"

"In that dress, mademoiselle; Just as you are now, warming yourself at
the fire of life."

"But it isn't there."

"Yes, fires soon go out. Mademoiselle, will you come and see my wife?
She is ill."

"Now?" asked Noel, startled.

"Yes, now. She is really ill, and I have no one there. That is what I
came to ask of your sister; but--now you are here, it's even better. She
likes you."

Noel got up. "Wait one minute!" she said, and ran upstairs. Her baby
was asleep, and the old nurse dozing. Putting on a cloak and cap of
grey rabbit's fur, she ran down again to the hall where the painter was
waiting; and they went out together.

"I do not know if I am to blame," he said, "my wife has been no real
wife to me since she knew I had a mistress and was no real husband to
her."

Noel stared round at his face lighted by a queer, smile.

"Yes," he went on, "from that has come her tragedy. But she should have
known before I married her. Nothing was concealed. Bon Dieu! she should
have known! Why cannot a woman see things as they are? My mistress,
mademoiselle, is not a thing of flesh. It is my art. It has always been
first with me, and always will. She has never accepted that, she is
incapable of accepting it. I am sorry for her. But what would you? I was
a fool to marry her. Chere mademoiselle, no troubles are anything beside
the trouble which goes on day and night, meal after meal, year, after
year, between two people who should never have married, because one
loves too much and requires all, and the other loves not at all--no, not
at all, now, it is long dead--and can give but little."

"Can't you separate?" asked Noel, wondering.

"It is hard to separate from one who craves for you as she craves her
drugs--yes, she takes drugs now, mademoiselle. It is impossible for one
who has any compassion in his soul. Besides, what would she do? We live
from hand to mouth, in a strange land. She has no friends here, not one.
How could I leave her while this war lasts? As well could two persons on
a desert island separate. She is killing herself, too, with these drugs,
and I cannot stop her."

"Poor madame!" murmured Noel. "Poor monsieur!"

The painter drew his hand across his eyes.

"I cannot change my nature," he said in a stifled voice, "nor she hers.
So we go on. But life