tense activity by means of which true artists
escape from themselves and all their surroundings.

Jenkins took a few hurried steps, deeply moved, his lip swollen with
avowals that dared not come forth, and began two or three sentences
that met with no reply; at last, feeling that he was dismissed, he took
his hat and walked toward the door.

"It's understood then, is it? I am to bring him here?"

"Who, pray?"

"Why, the Nabob. Only a moment ago you said yourself--"

"Oh! yes," said the strange creature, whose caprices were not of long
duration, "bring him if you choose; I don't care particularly about
it."

And her musical, listless voice, in which something seemed to have
broken, the utter indifference of her whole bearing showed that it was
true, that she cared for nothing on earth.

Jenkins went away in sore perplexity, with clouded brow. But as soon as
he had passed the door he resumed his smiling, cordial manner, being
one of those men who wear a mask on the street. The mist, still visible
in the neighborhood of the Seine, was reduced to a few floating shreds,
which gave an air of vapory unsubstantiality to the houses on the quay,
to the steam-boats of which only the paddle-wheels could be seen, and
to the distant horizon, where the dome of the Invalides hovered like a
gilded balloon, whose netting shed rays of light. The increasing
warmth, the activity in the quarter indicated that noon was not far
away and that it would soon be announced by the ringing of all the
bells.

Before calling upon the Nabob, however, Jenkins had another call to
make. But it seemed to be a great nuisance to him. However, as he had
promised! So he said, with sudden decision, as he jumped into the
carriage:

"68 Rue Saint-Ferdinand, aux Ternes."

Joe, the coachman, was scandalized and made his master repeat the
address; even the horse showed some little hesitation, as if the
valuable beast and the spotless new livery were disgusted at having to
visit a faubourg so far away, outside the restricted but brilliant
circle in which their master's patients were grouped together. They
arrived, however, without hindrance, at the end of an unfinished
provincial street, and at the last of its houses, a five-story
building, which the street seemed to have sent out to reconnoitre and
ascertain if it could safely continue in that direction, isolated as it
was between desolate tracts of land awaiting prospective buildings or
filled with the