Campton, proffering¹ twenty francs to an astonished maid-servant, learned that, yes, to his intimates—and of course Monsieur was one?—the doctor was in, was in fact dining, and did not leave till the next morning.

 

“Dining—at six o’clock?”

 

“Monsieur’s son, Monsieur Jean, is starting at once for his depot². That’s the reason.”

 

Campton sent in his card. He expected to be received in the so-called “studio,” a lofty room with Chinese hangings, Renaissance³ choir-stalls, organ, grand piano, and post-impressionist paintings, where Fortin-Lescluze received the celebrities⁴ of the hour. Mme. Fortin never appeared there, and Campton associated the studio with amusing talk, hot-house flowers, and ladies lolling on black velvet⁵ divans⁶. He supposed that the physician was separated from his wife, and that she had a home of her own.

 

When the maid reappeared she did not lead him to the studio, but into a small dining-room with the traditional Henri II sideboard of waxed walnut⁷, a 67hanging table-lamp under a beaded shade, an India-rubber plant on a plush pedestal, and napkins that were just being restored to their bone rings by the four persons seated about the red-and-white checkered⁸ table-cloth.

 

These were: the great man himself, a tall large woman with grey hair, a tiny old lady, her face framed in a peasant’s fluted⁹ cap, and a plain young man wearing a private’s uniform, who had a nose like the doctor’s and simple light blue eyes.

 

The two ladies and the young man—so much more interesting to the painter’s eye than the

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