“O, to perdition with this question of understanding! There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
“No, Felix—no, indeed: I want to have my eyes opened, if you will only believe me. Show me your sketches again.”
I was nothing loth; there can be no question of vanity in proselytism; and I got out a portfolio of colour notes made in Provence. As before, Fifine considered them without emotion, while I confined myself to the simple enumeration of their titles. Presently we came to one before which she paused in a stupefaction so desperate that I was tickled for once into a brief exposition:—
“Imagine yourself waking in bed on a brilliant June morning, and facing a window outside which the plumy tops of a row of plane trees trellised the blue. What would be the impression to your eyes, winking and blinking between dreams and reality? That was painted at Orange.”
Fifine looked up quickly.
“Orange!” she said. “That was where I was born.”
I felt a little surprise; but only for a moment. What was against her being born where she liked? And then she went on, with just a little suggestion of flurry: “How much you must have travelled, judging by all the places you have sketched. And I have never travelled at all.”
“Have you not? Save from Orange to Paris, of course. Do you want to?”
“It would be amusing to see my birthplace again.”
“Well, why not? Let us go together.”