“What days, mademoiselle?”

For the gratification of a curiosity he condemned, Max put the question.

“Oh, monsieur, when some little affair arises upon which he and I dispute—­when some cloud, as it were, darkens the sun.”  She continued to look down demurely; then quickly she looked up again.  “But I waste your time!  And, besides, I have not finished what I would say.”

“Oh, mademoiselle, I beg—­”

“It is not of the poulet that I would speak, monsieur!  I understand that artists are not all alike; and that, whereas bad work gives Lucien an appetite, it gives you a disgust!  Still, you are a philosopher, and will allow others to eat, even if you will not eat yourself.”

Max looked bewildered.

“Good!” Jacqueline clapped her hands again softly.  “I knew I would find success!  I said I would find success!”

“But, mademoiselle, I do not understand.”

“No, monsieur!  Neither did M. Blake, when I met him upon the stairs, and told him of my poulet.  He also, it seems, had lost his appetite.  Your picture must have been truly bad!”

She discreetly toyed with her belt during the accepted space of time in which a brain can conceive—­a heart leap—­to an overmastering joy; then she looked again at Max.

“It is a little idea of my own, monsieur, that you and M. Edouard should make the acquaintance of my Lucien.  M. Edouard already consents; I hope that you, monsieur—­”

For answer, Max caught her hand.  From that moment he loved her—­her prettiness, her mischief, her humanity.

“Mademoiselle!  I do not understand—­and I do understand!”

“But you will come, monsieur?”

“I will eat your chicken, mademoiselle—­even to the bones!”

CHAPTER XVIII

Comradeship in its broader sense is Bohemianism at its best; Bohemianism, not as it is imagined by the dilettante—­a thing of picturesque penury and exotic vice—­but a spontaneous intermingling of personalities, an understanding, a fraternity as purely a gift of the gods as love or beauty.

It is true that the sense of regained happiness beat strong in the mind of Max when he followed Jacqueline into her unpicturesque living-room with its sparse, cheap furniture, its piano and its gas stove, and that the happiness budded and blossomed like a flower in the sun at the one swift glance exchanged with Blake; but even had these factors not been present, he must still have been sensible of the pretty touch of hospitality patent in the girl’s manner the moment she crossed her own threshold, conscious of the friendly smile of M. Lucien Cartel, typical artist, typical Frenchman of the southern provinces—­short, swarthy, alive from his coarse black hair to the square tips of his fingers.  It was in the air—­the sense of good-will—­the desire for conviviality; and in the first greeting, the first hand-shake, the relations of the party were established.