A soft light stole into the girl's face. Home! Ah, that was all she needed to make her cup of happiness full. Intoxicated with this new sensation of a first literary success, full of the keen pleasure this visit to the beautiful city was giving her, bubbling over with the joy of life, happy in the almost daily companionship of the man she liked most in the world after her father, there was only one thing lacking—home! She had left New York only a month before, and she was homesick already. Her father she missed most. She was fond of her mother, too, but the latter, being somewhat of a nervous invalid, had never been to her quite what her father had been. The playmate of her childhood, companion of her girlhood, her friend and adviser in womanhood, Judge Rossmore was to his daughter the ideal man and father. Answering Jefferson's question she said:
"I had a letter from father last week. Everything was going on at home as when I left. Father says he misses me sadly, and that mother is ailing as usual."
She smiled, and Jefferson smiled too. They both knew by experience that nothing really serious ailed Mrs. Rossmore, who was a good deal of a hypochondriac, and always so filled with aches and pains that, on the few occasions when she really felt well, she was genuinely alarmed.
The fiacre by this time had emerged from the Rue de Rivoli and was rolling smoothly along the fine wooden pavement in front of the historic Conciergerie prison where Marie Antoinette was confined before her execution. Presently they recrossed the Seine, and the cab, dodging the tram car rails, proceeded at a smart pace up the "Boul' Mich'," which is the familiar diminutive bestowed by the students upon that broad avenue which traverses the very heart of their beloved Quartier Latin. On the left frowned the scholastic walls of the learned Sorbonne, in the distance towered the majestic dome of the Pantheon where Rousseau, Voltaire and Hugo lay buried.
Like most of the principal arteries of the French capital, the boulevard was generously lined with trees, now in full bloom, and the sidewalks fairly seethed with a picturesque throng in which mingled promiscuously frivolous students, dapper shop clerks, sober citizens, and frisky, flirtatious little ouvrieres, these last being all hatless, as is characteristic of the work-girl class, but singularly attractive in their neat black dresses and dainty low-cut shoes. There was also much in evidence another type of female whose extravagance of costume and boldness of manner loudly proclaimed her ancient profession.
On either side of the boulevard were shops and cafes, mostly cafes, with every now and then a brasserie, or beer hall. Seated in front of these establishments, taking their ease as if beer sampling constituted the only real interest in their lives, were hundreds of students, reckless and dare-devil, and suggesting almost anything except serious study. They all wore frock coats and tall silk hats, and some of the latter were wonderful specimens of the hatter's art. A few of the more eccentric students had long hair down to their shoulders, and wore baggy peg-top trousers of extravagant cut, which hung in loose folds over their sharp-pointed boots. On their heads were queer plug hats with flat brims.
Shirley laughed outright and regretted that she did not have her kodak to take back to America some idea of their grotesque appearance, and she listened with amused interest as Jefferson explained that these men were notorious poseurs, aping the dress and manners of the old-time student as he flourished in the days of Randolph and Mimi and the other immortal characters of Murger's Bohemia. Nobody took them seriously except themselves, and for the most part they were bad rhymesters of decadent verse. Shirley was astonished to see so many of them busily engaged smoking cigarettes and imbibing glasses of a pale-green beverage, which Jefferson told her was absinthe.
"When do they read?" she asked. "When do they attend lectures?"
"Oh," laughed Jefferson, "only the old-fashioned students take their studies seriously. Most of the men you see there are from the provinces, seeing Paris for the first time, and having their fling. Incidentally they are studying life. When they have sown their wild oats and learned all about life—provided they are still alive and have any money left—they will begin to study books. You would be surprised to know how many of these young men, who have been sent to the University at a cost of goodness knows what sacrifices, return to their native towns in a few months wrecked in body and mind, without having once set foot in a lecture room, and, in fact, having done nothing except inscribe their names on the rolls."
Shirley was glad she knew no such men, and if she ever married and had a son she would pray God to spare her that grief and humiliation. She herself knew something about the sacrifices parents make to secure a college education for their children. Her father had sent her to Vassar. She was a product of the much-sneered-at higher education for women, and all her life she would be grateful for the advantages given her. Her liberal education had broadened her outlook on life and enabled her to accomplish the little she had. When she graduated her father had left her free to follow her own inclinations. She had little taste for social distractions, and still she could not remain idle. For a time she thought of teaching to occupy her mind, but she knew she lacked the necessary patience, and she could not endure the drudgery of it, so, having won honors at college in English composition, she determined to try her hand at literature. She wrote a number of essays and articles on a hundred different subjects which she sent to the magazines, but they all came back with politely worded excuses for their rejection. But Shirley kept right on. She knew she wrote well; it must be that her subjects were not suitable. So she adopted new tactics, and persevered until one day came a letter of acceptance from the editor of one of the minor magazines. They would take the article offered—a sketch of college life—and as many more in similar vein as Miss Rossmore could write. This success had been followed by other acceptances and other commissions, until at the present time she was a well-known writer for the leading publications. Her great ambition had been to write a book, and "The American Octopus," published under an assumed name, was the result.