II
THE WOOD FIRE AND ITS FRIENDS
Two men burst in.
Herbert, compact, wellknit, ruddy, simple in his bearing and manner; Louis, broad-shouldered, strong as a bull, and bubbling over with unrepressed merriment. Both were muffled to their chins—Herbert in his fur motor-coat, his cap drawn close over his steady gray eyes; Louis in his big sketching-cloak and hood and a pair of goggles which gave him so owlish a look that both Mignon and Leà broke out laughing at the sight.
“Fifty miles an hour, High-Muck” (I am High-Muck) “this brute of a Herbert kept up. Everything went by in a blur; but for these gig-lamps I’d be stone blind.”
The brace and the snap of the crisp autumn air clinging to their clothes suddenly permeated the room as with electricity. Even slow-moving Lemois felt its vivifying current as he hurriedly dragged the Florentine nearer the fire.
“See, Monsieur Herbert, the chair has been waiting for you. I have kept even Monsieur High-Muck out of it.”
“That’s very good of you, Lemois,” returned the sculptor as he handed Leà his coat and gloves and settled himself in its depths. “I’m glad to get back to it. What the chair thinks about it is another thing—make it tell you some time.”
“But it has—only last night one of the heads was saying——”
“None of that, Lemois,” laughed Louis, abreast of the fireplace now, his fingers outspread to the blaze. “Too many wooden heads talking around here as it is. I don’t, of course, object to Herbert’s wobbling around in its upholstered magnificence, but he can’t play doge and monopolize everything. Shove your high-backed pulpit with its grinning cherubs to one side, I tell you, Herbert, and let me warm up”—and off came the cloak and goggles, his broad shoulders and massive arms coming into view. Then tossing them to Mignon, he turned to me.
“There’s one thing you’re good for, High-Muck-a-Muck, if nothing else, and that is to keep a fire going. If I wanted to find you, and there was a chimney within a mile, I’d be sure you were sitting in front of the hearth with the tongs in your hand”—here he kicked a big log into place bringing to life a swarm of sparks that blazed out a welcome and then went laughing up the chimney. “By thunder!—isn’t this glorious! Crowd up, all of you—this is the best yet! Lemois, won’t you please shove just a plain, little chair this way for me? No—come to think of it, I’ll take half of Herbert’s royal throne,” and he squeezed in beside the sculptor, one leg dangling over the arm of the Florentine.