On the way down the street Clutton said to him: 

“You’ve made an impression on Fanny Price.  You’d better look out.”

Philip laughed.  He had never seen anyone on whom he wished less to make an impression.  They came to the cheap little restaurant at which several of the students ate, and Clutton sat down at a table at which three or four men were already seated.  For a franc, they got an egg, a plate of meat, cheese, and a small bottle of wine.  Coffee was extra.  They sat on the pavement, and yellow trams passed up and down the boulevard with a ceaseless ringing of bells.

“By the way, what’s your name?” said Clutton, as they took their seats.

“Carey.”

“Allow me to introduce an old and trusted friend, Carey by name,” said Clutton gravely.  “Mr. Flanagan, Mr. Lawson.”

They laughed and went on with their conversation.  They talked of a thousand things, and they all talked at once.  No one paid the smallest attention to anyone else.  They talked of the places they had been to in the summer, of studios, of the various schools; they mentioned names which were unfamiliar to Philip, Monet, Manet, Renoir, Pissarro, Degas.  Philip listened with all his ears, and though he felt a little out of it, his heart leaped with exultation.  The time flew.  When Clutton got up he said: 

“I expect you’ll find me here this evening if you care to come.  You’ll find this about the best place for getting dyspepsia at the lowest cost in the Quarter.”

XLI

Philip walked down the Boulevard du Montparnasse.  It was not at all like the Paris he had seen in the spring during his visit to do the accounts of the Hotel St. Georges—­he thought already of that part of his life with a shudder—­but reminded him of what he thought a provincial town must be.  There was an easy-going air about it, and a sunny spaciousness which invited the mind to day-dreaming.  The trimness of the trees, the vivid whiteness of the houses, the breadth, were very agreeable; and he felt himself already thoroughly at home.  He sauntered along, staring at the people; there seemed an elegance about the most ordinary, workmen with their broad red sashes and their wide trousers, little soldiers in dingy, charming uniforms.  He came presently to the Avenue de l’Observatoire, and he gave a sigh of pleasure at the magnificent, yet so graceful, vista.  He came to the gardens of the Luxembourg:  children were playing, nurses with long ribbons walked slowly two by two, busy men passed through with satchels under their arms, youths strangely dressed.  The scene was formal and dainty; nature was arranged and ordered, but so exquisitely, that nature unordered and unarranged seemed barbaric.  Philip was enchanted.  It excited him to stand on that spot of which he had read so much; it was classic ground to him; and he felt the awe and the delight which some old don might feel when for the first time he looked on the smiling plain of Sparta.