Several spoke, and one asked, “Shall we take lunch with us?”

“No, something will be provided for us there.”

“So much the better.  When are we to meet, and where?”

“Twelve o’clock, midday, at ——.”

“What messieurs are going?”

“Quite a number—­a tenor from the Grand Opera, and the leader of the orchestra, who is a magnificent violinist; that new Spanish painter who plays the guitar divinely; a poet—­that is, he has written some pretty songs—­besides plenty more.”

“That promises well.”

“You will bring your friend?” and the speaker nodded her head toward me.

“I shall be delighted:  I am so curious to see those eccentric—­” Here a warning glance from Afra stopped me.

But the lady only laughed and said, “You will see eccentricity enough to-morrow, if that is what you want.  People who devote their minds to great objects have no time to think of little things.  You had better see that Afra has on her bonnet or she will go without one.”

“Nonsense!” replied Afra.—­“Miss,” this to the owner of the studio, who was so called in honor of her English birth, “are you ever troubled by the ghost of that young painter who hung himself up there?”

“Those who have occasion to commit suicide are not likely to come back:  they have had enough of this world,” said the Englishwoman.

“Did some one really die here?” I asked.

“Yes, really;” and Afra mimicked my tone of horror.  “You know, a Bohemian is at home anywhere, so a change of country don’t affect him much.  If we find a place disagreeable, we travel.”

“Was he insane?”

“Not more than the rest of us, but you can’t understand the feeling that would induce a man to do such a thing.  This young fellow painted a picture:  he put his mind, his soul, himself, into it, and sent it to the Exhibition.  It was rejected—­that is, he was rejected—­and he came here and died.  They found him suspended from that beam where the lamps hang now.”

“I thought your Bohemia was so gay?”

“So it is, but the brightest light makes the deepest shadows.”

The conversation went on.  These ladies discussed politics, literature, art and society with absolute confidence.  One of the topics was Alfred de Musset.  The Englishwoman was praising the English Alfred, when a pale-faced girl, who up to this moment had been intently reading, oblivious of all about her, closed her book with a snap (it was a much-worn edition of one of the classics, bought for a few sous on the quay) and broke out with—­“Your Tennyson is childish.  His King Arthur puts me in mind of our Louis Philippe and his umbrella.  Did you know Louis carried an umbrella with him when he was obliged to fly from Paris?  One would have looked well held over Arthur’s dragon helmet that disagreeable night he left the queen to go and fight his nephew.  But perhaps Guinevere had lent it to Launcelot, and even the best