M. Vailliant spread his legs as he bent over the pile; he puffed out his lips and sucked them in, his only sign of emotion, as he began separating the drawings into two piles% Then he applied the same process to those on the table, without question or comment. Helen did not know what to make of him. She was dizzy with curiosity and hope. When he was through, still silent like some general over a war-map, this master of artistic fate, who knew that the real master was the public who paid his rent, made a single pile of those which he had chosen.
"And these?" He found he had missed some against the wall behind a portière.
"Oh, cartoons I call them—not a bit worth while!" said Helen. "Caricatures, perhaps. I just did them for the sport of it."
M. Vailliant did not seem to hear her. He went through the cartoons twice, still keeping up that motion of his lips as if he were alternately blowing soap bubbles and sucking in a string.
"Have you ever tried etching?" he asked.
"No. I'd like it, but—I——" gasped Helen.
"I would if I were you," he said, so very matter-of-factly that she was puzzled. "Ever tried painting?"
"I—yes——" she faltered. His shrewd eyes were looking at her sharply.
"Have you anything that you've done?"
"Yes, but it's awful—just splotches of colour. I see colour that way. Shall I get it?" she asked.