第11章

She had the gift of rapid definition, and his questions as to the life she had led with the Farlows, during the interregnum between the Hoke and Murrett eras, called up before him a queer little corner of Parisian existence.The Farlows themselves--he a painter, she a "magazine writer"--rose before him in all their incorruptible simplicity: an elderly New England couple, with vague yearnings for enfranchisement, who lived in Paris as if it were a Massachusetts suburb, and dwelt hopefully on the "higher side" of the Gallic nature.With equal vividness she set before him the component figures of the circle from which Mrs.Farlow drew the "Inner Glimpses of French Life"appearing over her name in a leading New England journal:

the Roumanian lady who had sent them tickets for her tragedy, an elderly French gentleman who, on the strength of a week's stay at Folkestone, translated English fiction for the provincial press, a lady from Wichita, Kansas, who advocated free love and the abolition of the corset, a clergyman's widow from Torquay who had written an "English Ladies' Guide to Foreign Galleries" and a Russian sculptor who lived on nuts and was "almost certainly" an anarchist.

It was this nucleus, and its outer ring of musical, architectural and other American students, which posed successively to Mrs.Farlow's versatile fancy as a centre of "University Life", a "Salon of the Faubourg St.Germain", a group of Parisian "Intellectuals" or a "Cross-section of Montmartre"; but even her faculty for extracting from it the most varied literary effects had not sufficed to create a permanent demand for the "Inner Glimpses", and there were days when--Mr.Farlow's landscapes being equally unmarketable--a temporary withdrawal to the country (subsequently utilized as "Peeps into Chateau Life") became necessary to the courageous couple.

Five years of Mrs.Murrett's world, while increasing Sophy's tenderness for the Farlows, had left her with few illusions as to their power of advancing her fortunes; and she did not conceal from Darrow that her theatrical projects were of the vaguest.They hung mainly on the problematical good-will of an ancient comedienne, with whom Mrs.Farlow had a slight acquaintance (extensively utilized in "Stars of the French Footlights" and "Behind the Scenes at the Francais"), and who had once, with signs of approval, heard Miss Viner recite the Nuit de Mai.

"But of course I know how much that's worth," the girl broke off, with one of her flashes of shrewdness."And besides, it isn't likely that a poor old fossil like Mme.Dolle could get anybody to listen to her now, even if she really thought I had talent.But she might introduce me to people; or at least give me a few tips.If I could manage to earn enough to pay for lessons I'd go straight to some of the big people and work with them.I'm rather hoping the Farlows may find me a chance of that kind--an engagement with some American family in Paris who would want to be 'gone round' with like the Hokes, and who'd leave me time enough to study."In the rue de la Chaise they learned little except the exact address of the Farlows, and the fact that they had sub-let their flat before leaving.This information obtained, Darrow proposed to Miss Viner that they should stroll along the quays to a little restaurant looking out on the Seine, and there, over the plat du jour, consider the next step to be taken.The long walk had given her cheeks a glow indicative of wholesome hunger, and she made no difficulty about satisfying it in Darrow's company.Regaining the river they walked on in the direction of Notre Dame, delayed now and again by the young man's irresistible tendency to linger over the bookstalls, and by his ever-fresh response to the shifting beauties of the scene.For two years his eyes had been subdued to the atmospheric effects of London, to the mysterious fusion of darkly-piled city and low-lying bituminous sky; and the transparency of the French air, which left the green gardens and silvery stones so classically clear yet so softly harmonized, struck him as having a kind of conscious intelligence.Every line of the architecture, every arch of the bridges, the very sweep of the strong bright river between them, while contributing to this effect, sent forth each a separate appeal to some sensitive memory; so that, for Darrow, a walk through the Paris streets was always like the unrolling of a vast tapestry from which countless stored fragrances were shaken out.

It was a proof of the richness and multiplicity of the spectacle that it served, without incongruity, for so different a purpose as the background of Miss Viner's enjoyment.As a mere drop-scene for her personal adventure it was just as much in its place as in the evocation of great perspectives of feeling.For her, as he again perceived when they were seated at their table in a low window above the Seine, Paris was "Paris" by virtue of all its entertaining details, its endless ingenuities of pleasantness.Where else, for instance, could one find the dear little dishes of hors d'oeuvre, the symmetrically-laid anchovies and radishes, the thin golden shells of butter, or the wood strawberries and brown jars of cream that gave to their repast the last refinement of rusticity?