keeps silent
about his potations. But that morning he brimmed over with revelations,
chaffed himself and owned to all sorts of scandalous things. After all
he was delighted with existence, his affairs went apace. His miserly
father had certainly cut off the supplies once more, cursing him for
obstinately pursuing a scandalous career, but he did not care a rap for
that now; he earned between seven and eight thousand francs a year by
journalism, in which he was making his way as a gossipy leader writer
and art critic. The noisy days of 'The Drummer,' the articles at a louis
apiece, had been left far behind. He was getting steady, wrote for two
widely circulated papers, and although, in his inmost heart he remained
a sceptical voluptuary, a worshipper of success at any price, he was
acquiring importance, and readers began to look upon his opinions as
fiats. Swayed by hereditary meanness, he already invested money every
month in petty speculations, which were only known to himself, for never
had his vices cost him less than nowadays.

As he and Claude reached the Rue de Moscou, he told the painter that
it was there that Irma Becot now lived. 'Oh! she is rolling in wealth,'
said he, 'paying twenty thousand francs a year rent and talking of
building a house which would cost half a million.' Then suddenly pulling
up he exclaimed: 'Come, here we are! In with you, quick!'

But Claude still objected. His wife was waiting for him to lunch; he
really couldn't. And Jory was obliged to ring the bell, and then push
him inside the hall, repeating that his excuse would not do; for they
would send the valet to the Rue de Douai to tell his wife. A door opened
and they found themselves face to face with Irma Becot, who uttered a
cry of surprise as soon as she perceived the painter.

'What! is it you, savage?' she said.

She made him feel at home at once by treating him like an old chum,
and, in fact, he saw well enough that she did not even notice his old
clothes. He himself was astonished, for he barely recognised her. In
the course of four years she had become a different being; her head was
'made up' with all an actress's skill, her brow hidden beneath a mass of
curly hair, and her face elongated, by a sheer effort of will, no doubt.
And from a pale blonde she had become flaringly carrotty; so that a
Titianesque creature seemed to have sprung from the little urchin-like
girl of former days. Her house, with all its show of luxury, st