AN APARTMENT IN THE LATIN QUARTER
Nothing remained for Ethel but to meet her artist. An opportunity soon
offered itself at the Comtesse de Donjeon’s five-o’clock tea, at which
she was often present.
Ethel, first of all, had looked for an apartment for her own
convenience; the hotel, thanks to Vieillecloche, was becoming
intolerable.
“Foreigners, stay at home!” the “Tocsin” printed. “Remember the night
of the 13th March, 1871, of the day of November 22, 1876. Respect the
verdict of the 363. Tremble! The people is bristling its mane of the
16th May, and bares its claws of the 14th July!”
“We’d have done better to stay in Chicago,” said grandma.
At first the torrent of carriages and automobiles and bicycles flowing
day and night before her window had amused Ethel. But soon she tired of
it. There were, indeed, theaters and parks, and visits to dressmakers
and society calls. But the theaters were impossible, the parks were
only parks after all, the visits to dressmakers were anything but
amusing—it’s so easy to buy! and as to society, Ethel wished to rest a
little—for a change!
“To speak four languages, including my own, to play three instruments,
including the harp, which only needs passable arms—all that doesn’t
count. I must go to painting again. Oh, I wish I could have a picture
on the line and a Salon medal! I wish I could do a work on La Salle’s
explorations, at the Bibliothèque Nationale! What would I not give to
write like Princess Troubetzkoi or paint like Cecilia Beaux! I am tired
of all this idleness. I wish to work; I wish to be something by myself,
and not merely the daughter of papa. I wish that—Grandma! let’s go to
the Latin Quarter! I will be just a student girl living with her good
grandmother while she studies art!”
“Let’s go, then, to the Latin Quarter, Ethel,” said grandma, who would
have followed Ethel to the end of the world. “We shall be as well off
there as here—or let’s go back to America if you wish; for my part I
prefer new countries!”
“But the Latin Quarter shall be new for you! You shall see how we’ll
amuse ourselves,” said Ethel, kissing her grandmother.
So they looked for a place in the Latin Quarter. They set off early,
and, walking under the great trees of the Luxembourg, or leaning on the
balustrades, looked at the palace and the flower-beds of the gardens.
There were bare-legged babies; nurses beribboned from neck to heel;
soldiers in red trousers; a priest in a black gown; gardeners in wooden
shoes; young girls without hats; students with hats flat-brimmed;
everything gave them the feeling that they were abroad, far, far away.
Such specimens of the pigmy races which vegetate in old countries
amused grandma, and the garden pleased her greatly.
“This is like Douglas Park—except that it hasn’t any ornamental mound.
Do you remember, Ethel, that globe of earth with continents and seas
colored on it in different flowers, and our glorious flag made of white
and red pinks and blue corn-flowers?”
“Oh, grandma, for heaven’s sake!” said Ethel.
“And yet it’s not bad here,” continued grandma. “The people are so
gay! the soldiers’ trousers are too short, and the gardener has wooden
shoes; but they look gay; why, I wonder?”
At the beginning they did not venture into the Latin Quarter without
some emotion. On the strength of what they had read and seen at the
theater they expected moss-grown houses with flowers in the windows,
and streets resounding with song, where students and grisettes danced
the _cancan_. Grandma soon got over her mistake, after a narrow escape
from being crushed by a tram-car in a thoroughfare which was for all
the world like State Street.
“It’s not so bad as I thought,” she said enthusiastically. “It reminds
me of Chicago.”
In their visits they went up and down an endless number of stairways.
Often grandma stayed below, leaving Ethel to visit the apartments.
“Houses without elevators!” said grandma; “Ethel must be crazy!”
She waited for Ethel in deep courtyards or sat in concierges’ lodges,
near stoves where cabbage-soup was bubbling. More than once, while
she was alone in the lodge, some one would come and ask information
from her, taking her for the concierge. Once a butcher’s boy, with his
basket of meat on his arm, opened the door.
“_B’jour_, m’am; what will M’am Gibbon have to-day—_culotte de veau_?”
But he ran away in a fright at the sight of Mrs. Rowrer staring at him
without answering. Such incidents helped grandma to pass the time.
It was while crossing the Rue Servandoni that they at last found their
apartment. An atmosphere of peace seemed to issue forth from the old
façade with its immense windows. By the open door they could see a
wide stone staircase with a railing of wrought iron. A great tree
shaded the silent courtyard. The placard was out: “Apartment to Let.”
So they entered. The apartment was at once magnificent and simple, all
in white, with lines of gold, and carved doors surmounted by painted
panels.
The street itself had a certain air of tranquil distinction. One of its
extremities seemed barred by the austere walls of the old Luxembourg
Palace, and the other by the enormous apse of St. Sulpice, with its
statue of St. Paul upright on a pedestal between two columns.
“My favorite saint!” said Ethel, who did not believe in cold and
passionless perfection, but in struggles for the best, with tears
undoing faults. “St. Paul himself keeps guard over the end of the
street! How happy we shall be here, grandma! And we’ll heat ourselves
with wood fires and be lighted with candles,” she added with the joy of
a child.
“We’ve found a real gem of an apartment,” Ethel said to the Comtesse de
Donjeon, that very evening at her “five”-o’clock, which was at four.
“Imagine, madame, a door covered with carving, through which you go
underneath Medusa heads and cornucopias. We shall burn oil-lamps and
candles; that will make us wish to wear flounces and dress our hair _à
la belle poule_—”
“And to play ‘_Il pleut, bergère_’ on a spinet!” the countess
interrupted. “Where did you discover such a gem of an apartment!”
“In the Rue Servandoni,” said Ethel.
“I know,” said the countess; “it’s near St. Sulpice. And, by the
way, dear Miss Rowrer, if you wish any bric-à-brac to furnish your
shelves, I can recommend you a precious man, a great connoisseur and a
distinguished critic, a journalist of the good cause—M. Caracal.”
“Thank you so much, madame! M. Caracal would be very useful to me,”
Miss Rowrer had answered.
“He’s a friend of the Duke of Morgania and of your fellow-countryman,
Mr. Phil Longwill, whom you are acquainted with, perhaps.”
“Only by name,” Ethel said.
“The duke and Mr. Longwill are coming here to-day, I believe. I will
present them to you if you wish.”
They were in the great salon in the half-darkness of the silken
curtains. Although it was broad daylight outside, lighted lamps shed a
yellow glow and sparkled amid the glass of the chandeliers and the gold
frames of paintings. A valet announced two ladies—“Mme. and Mlle. de
Grojean!” The countess hastened toward them.
Ethel was looking vaguely into the depths of the room. Two other
visitors came in, talking together like friends.
“His Highness the Duke of Morgania.
“Monsieur Phil Longwill!”