The King in Yellow - Robert W. Chambers (affordable ebook reader TXT) 📗

blushed. Miss Byng looked at him with a sympathetic sigh and continued: “Whenever I felt homesick at first I used to go with mamma and walk in the Luxembourg Gardens. I don’t know why it is, but those old-fashioned gardens seemed to bring me nearer home than anything in this artificial city.”

“But they are full of marble statues,” said Mrs. Byng mildly; “I don’t see the resemblance myself.”

“Where is the Luxembourg?” inquired Hastings after a silence.

“Come with me to the gate,” said Miss Byng. He rose and followed her, and she pointed out the Rue Vavin at the foot of the street.

“You pass by the convent to the right,” she smiled; and Hastings went.

III

The Luxembourg was a blaze of flowers. He walked slowly through the long avenues of trees, past mossy marbles and old-time columns, and threading the grove by the bronze lion, came upon the tree-crowned terrace above the fountain. Below lay the basin shining in the sunlight. Flowering almonds encircled the terrace, and, in a greater spiral, groves of chestnuts wound in and out and down among the moist thickets by the western palace wing. At one end of the avenue of trees the Observatory rose, its white domes piled up like an eastern mosque; at the other end stood the heavy palace, with every windowpane ablaze in the fierce sun of June.

Around the fountain, children and white-capped nurses armed with bamboo poles were pushing toy boats, whose sails hung limp in the sunshine. A dark policeman, wearing red epaulettes and a dress sword, watched them for a while and then went away to remonstrate with a young man who had unchained his dog. The dog was pleasantly occupied in rubbing grass and dirt into his back while his legs waved into the air.

The policeman pointed at the dog. He was speechless with indignation.

“Well, Captain,” smiled the young fellow.

“Well, Monsieur Student,” growled the policeman.

“What do you come and complain to me for?”

“If you don’t chain him I’ll take him,” shouted the policeman.

“What’s that to me, mon capitaine?”

“Wha⁠—t! Isn’t that bulldog yours?”

“If it was, don’t you suppose I’d chain him?”

The officer glared for a moment in silence, then deciding that as he was a student he was wicked, grabbed at the dog, who promptly dodged. Around and around the flowerbeds they raced, and when the officer came too near for comfort, the bulldog cut across a flowerbed, which perhaps was not playing fair.

The young man was amused, and the dog also seemed to enjoy the exercise.

The policeman noticed this and decided to strike at the fountainhead of the evil. He stormed up to the student and said, “As the owner of this public nuisance I arrest you!”

“But,” objected the other, “I disclaim the dog.”

That was a poser. It was useless to attempt to catch the dog until three gardeners lent a hand, but then the dog simply ran away and disappeared in the Rue de Medici.

The policeman shambled off to find consolation among the white-capped nurses, and the student, looking at his watch, stood up yawning. Then catching sight of Hastings, he smiled and bowed. Hastings walked over to the marble, laughing.

“Why, Clifford,” he said, “I didn’t recognize you.”

“It’s my moustache,” sighed the other. “I sacrificed it to humour a whim of⁠—of⁠—a friend. What do you think of my dog?”

“Then he is yours?” cried Hastings.

“Of course. It’s a pleasant change for him, this playing tag with policemen, but he is known now and I’ll have to stop it. He’s gone home. He always does when the gardeners take a hand. It’s a pity; he’s fond of rolling on lawns.” Then they chatted for a moment of Hastings’ prospects, and Clifford politely offered to stand his sponsor at the studio.

“You see, old tabby, I mean Dr. Byram, told me about you before I met you,” explained Clifford, “and Elliott and I will be glad to do anything we can.” Then looking at his watch again, he muttered, “I have just ten minutes to catch the Versailles train; au revoir,” and started to go, but catching sight of a girl advancing by the fountain, took off his hat with a confused smile.

“Why are you not at Versailles?” she said, with an almost imperceptible acknowledgment of Hastings’ presence.

“I⁠—I’m going,” murmured Clifford.

For a moment they faced each other, and then Clifford, very red, stammered, “With your permission I have the honour of presenting to you my friend, Monsieur Hastings.”

Hastings bowed low. She smiled very sweetly, but there was something of malice in the quiet inclination of her small Parisienne head.

“I could have wished,” she said, “that Monsieur Clifford might spare me more time when he brings with him so charming an American.”

“Must⁠—must I go, Valentine?” began Clifford.

“Certainly,” she replied.

Clifford took his leave with very bad grace, wincing, when she added, “And give my dearest love to Cécile!” As he disappeared in the Rue d’Assas, the girl turned as if to go, but then suddenly remembering Hastings, looked at him and shook her head.

“Monsieur Clifford is so perfectly harebrained,” she smiled, “it is embarrassing sometimes. You have heard, of course, all about his success at the Salon?”

He looked puzzled and she noticed it.

“You have been to the Salon, of course?”

“Why, no,” he answered, “I only arrived in Paris three days ago.”

She seemed to pay little heed to his explanation, but continued: “Nobody imagined he had the energy to do anything good, but on varnishing day the Salon was astonished by the entrance of Monsieur Clifford, who strolled about as bland as you please with an orchid in his buttonhole, and a beautiful picture on the line.”

She smiled to herself at the reminiscence, and looked at the fountain.

“Monsieur Bouguereau told me that Monsieur Julian was so astonished that he only shook hands with Monsieur Clifford in a dazed manner, and actually forgot to pat him on the back! Fancy,” she continued with much merriment, “fancy papa Julian forgetting to pat one on the back.”

Hastings, wondering at her acquaintance with