At last she nodded to the child. He laughed and stretched, and dumped the sleeping cat from his knees. Cynthia put two francs in his small hand. Was that, she wondered, too much, or too little? It was what her breakfast had cost her. Apparently, by his reception, it was all right.
“Tomorrow?” she asked in French, and pointed toward the chair again.
“Oui, oui, Demain,” agreed Nono. Then he must know that artists sometimes wanted one to pose again.
That was on Sunday. Saturday had not been strikingly successful. For some reason, perhaps because it was Saturday, everything, banks and the Express Company, Mr. Culbert’s office and most of the museums Cynthia wished to visit, had been closed. Monday, of course, they would be open again, and she could get in touch with Mr. Culbert. Cynthia’s money was running low and she must ask for an advance on the first cover, and must find some way to get in touch with models to work from.
But Monday was no better than Sunday, nor than Saturday had been. The band, for the third time, had played all night, and Cynthia had slept fitfully, hot and miserable in the closed, noisy room. She awoke feeling as though she could sleep for a week. Then she remembered Nono. Here at last was one bright spot in Paris. She hurried out to breakfast with her large sketch pad and her color box under her arm.
Nono was waiting for her, and so was the black cat. Cynthia was ravenously hungry. A continental breakfast wasn’t enough food to last one through a day of sightseeing, and so far she had found no good place to eat. Hastily she drank her chocolate, shared a double order of rolls and butter with the somewhat greedy little Nono. She herself was anxious to get to work on this color sketch.
Nono, complete with the large sleepy cat, clambered into his wicker chair. The sunlight reflected warm and yellow beneath his chin and his eyes were half closed, amusingly, in the glare. The black smock seemed almost a dark green in contrast to the cat’s soft fur, and beyond them was the red and white ruffle of the awning, a brilliant splash of warm color. Cynthia asked to have her little painting pail filled with water, sketched in the brief outline of her composition, and slashed happily into color. Once she said, mechanically “Rest!” and found that the boy understood. In a few minutes he returned to his place. The cat was a little different, but Cynthia had allowed for that, and now sketched him in and completed that part of the drawing all in one pose.
The drawing was emerging with both charm and strength. Black, red and warm flesh tones accented with the green of the cat’s eyes, and one white paw lifted to rest against Nono’s black smock. This, thought Cynthia, was one of the nicest things she had ever done. Even fatigue and hunger seemed to have added to her ability since her senses seemed sharpened, nerves tautened by the past two days.
She had decided to go that afternoon and find the little French girl Mrs. Brewster had recommended for language lessons. Her visit to the Express Company, and to the office where she had hoped to find Mr. Culbert were as unsuccessful as Saturday’s visits. Everything was still closed tight.
Cynthia was beginning to worry. She had only a few hundred francs, about fifteen dollars, left in her purse and there was no telling how long this celebration might last. It puzzled her. She had asked Madame at the desk and had learned that it was the “Fourteenth of July,” whatever that was! But Friday had been the fourteenth. Surely they didn’t celebrate America’s Fourth of July over here, did they? Foggily she tried to connect it with Lafayette and the two Revolutions, but couldn’t make it out. Everywhere the little street bands continued to play and people continued to dance in the streets.