he hemmed and hawed and rolled his
tongue around as if he were trying to say something that it was very
difficult to say; then with sudden resolution:

"Here is your first month's pay."

"But, monsieur--"

The young man insisted. He was a stranger. It was fair that he should
pay in advance. Evidently Passajon had told him. M. Joyeuse understood
and said, beneath his breath: "Thanks, oh! thanks!" so deeply moved
that words failed him. Life, it meant life for a few months, time to
turn around, to find a situation. His darlings would be deprived of
nothing. They would have their New Year's gifts. O Providence!

"Until Wednesday, then, Monsieur Joyeuse."

"Until Wednesday, Monsieur--?"

"De Gery--Paul de Gery."

They parted, equally dazzled, enchanted, one by the appearance of that
unexpected saviour, the other by the lovely tableau of which he had
caught a glimpse, all those maidens grouped around the table covered
with books and papers and skeins, with an air of purity, of
hard-working probity. That sight opened up to de Gery a whole new
Paris, brave, domestic, very different from that with which he was
already familiar, a Paris of which the writers of feuilletons and the
reporters never speak, and which reminded him of his province, with an
additional element, namely, the charm which the surrounding hurly-burly
and turmoil impart to the peaceful shelter that they do not reach.

VI.

FELICIA RUYS.

"By the way, what have you done with your son, Jenkins? Why do we never
see him at your house now? He was an attractive boy."

As she said this in the tone of disdainful acerbity in which she always
addressed the Irishman, Felicia was at work on the bust of the Nabob
which she had just begun, adjusting her model, taking up and putting
down the modelling tool, wiping her hands with a quick movement on the
little sponge, while the light and peace of a lovely Sunday afternoon
flooded the circular glass-walled studio. Felicia "received" every
Sunday, if receiving consisted in leaving her door open and allowing
people to come and go and sit down a moment, without stirring from her
work for them, or even breaking off a discussion she might have begun,
to welcome new arrivals. There were artists with shapely heads and
bright red beards, and here and there the white poll of an old man,
sentimental friends of the elder Ruys; then there were connoisseurs,
men of the world, bankers, brokers, and some young swells wh