"When will you come? To-morrow?"
"I will come at three o'clock. Have your things on by that time, and we will go for a ramble."
René Caillard came into Cuthbert's room at nine o'clock the next morning.
"I came round yesterday evening, Cuthbert, and heard from the concierge that you had arrived and had gone out again. As she said you had driven off in a fiacre, it was evidently of no use waiting. I thought I would come down and catch you the first thing this morning. You look well and strong again, your native air evidently suits you."
"I feel quite well again, though not quite so strong. So things have turned out just as I anticipated, and the Reds are the masters of Paris."
René shrugged his shoulders. "It is disgusting," he said. "It does not trouble us much, we have nothing to lose but our heads, and as these scoundrels would gain nothing by cutting them off, I suppose we shall be allowed to go our own way."
"Is the studio open again?"
"Oh, yes, and we are all hard at work, that is to say, the few that remain of us. Goudé has been fidgeting for you to come back. He has asked several times whether I have news of you, and if I was sure you had not left Paris forever. I know he will be delighted when I tell him that you have returned; still more so if you take the news yourself."
"I suppose Minette has resumed her duties as model?"
"Not she," René said scornfully, "she is one of the priestesses of the Commune. She rides about on horseback with a red flag and sash. Sometimes she goes at the head of a battalion, sometimes she rides about with the leaders. She is in earnest but she is in earnest theatrically, and that fool, Dampierre, is as bad as she is."