Down below, in our neighbor's garden—the one adjoining our own and facing the sea—a new and old world of fashion in capes and other garments were a-flutter in the breeze, morning after morning. Who and what was this neighbor, that he should have so curious and eccentric a taste in clothes? No woman was to be seen in the garden-paths; a man, in a butler's apron and a silk skullcap, came and went, his arms piled high with gowns and scarves, and all manner of strange odds and ends. Each morning some new assortment of garments met our wondering eyes. Sometimes it was a collection of Empire embroidered costumes that were hung out on the line; faded fleur-de-lis, sprigs of dainty lilies and roses, gold-embossed Empire coats, strewn thick with seed-pearls on satins softened by time into melting shades. When next we looked the court of Napoleon had vanished, and the Bourbon period was, literally, in full swing. A frou-frou of laces, coats with deep skirts, and beribboned trousers would be fluttering airily in the soft May air. Once, in fine contrast to these courtly splendors, was a wondrous assortment of flannel petticoats. They were of every hue—red, yellow, brown, pink, patched, darned, wide-skirted, plaited, ruffled—they appeared to represent the taste and requirement of every climate and country, if one could judge by the thickness of some and the gossamer tissues of others; but even the smartest were obviously, unmistakably, effrontedly, flannel petticoats.
It was a mystery that greatly intrigued us. One morning the mystery was solved. A whiff of tobacco from an upper window came along with a puff of wind. It was a heated whiff, in spite of the cooling breeze. It was from a pipe, a short, black pipe, owned by some one in the Mansard window next door. There was the round disk of a dark-blue beret drooping over the pipe. "Good—" I said to myself—"I shall see now—at last—this maniac with a taste for darned petticoats!"
The pipe smoked peacefully, steadily on. The beret was motionless. Between the pipe and the cap was a man's profile; it was too much in shadow to be clearly defined.
The next instant the man's face was in full sunlight. The face turned toward me—with the quick instinct of knowing itself watched—and then—
"Pas—possible!"
"You—here!"
"Been here a year—but you, when did you arrive? What luck! What luck!"
It was John Renard, the artist; after the first salutations question followed question.
"Are you alone?—"
"No."