CHAPTER XI

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!”