"We go together, and I adore thee!" said Pierre, and kissed her in the sight of all men, and was not ashamed.
Caffiard leaned forward, picked up the fallen wine-card, pretended to consult it, and ponderously arose. As Pierre was turning the key in the door of the little apartment, they heard a sound of heavy breathing, and the deus ex machina came lumbering up the winding stair.
"Monsieur is seeking some one?" asked the painter politely.
There was no breath left in Caffiard. He was only able, by way of reply, to point at the top button of Pierre's coat, and nod helplessly: then, as Mimi ran ahead to light the gas, he labored along the corridor, staggered through the curtained doorway, stumbled over a rattan stool, was rescued by Pierre, and, finally, established upon the divan, very red and gasping.
For a time there was silence, Pierre and Mimi busying themselves in putting the studio to rights, with an instinctive courtesy which took no notice of their visitor's snorts and wheezes; and Caffiard taking note of his surroundings with his round, blinking eyes. Opposite him, against the wall, reposed the portrait of the restaurateur's wife, as dry and pasty as a stale cream cheese upon the point of crumbling, and on an easel was another—that of Monsieur Pantin, the rich shirt-maker of the boulevard St. Germain—on which Pierre was at work. A veritable atrocity this, with a green background which trespassed upon Monsieur Pantin's hair, and a featureless face, gaunt and haggard with yellow and purple undertones. There was nothing in either picture to refute one's natural suspicion that soap had been the medium employed. Caffiard blinked harder still as his eyes rested upon the portraits, and he secretly consulted the crumpled wine-card in his hand. Then he seemed to recover his breath by means of a profound sigh.
"Monsieur makes caricatures?" he inquired.
"Ah, monsieur," said Pierre, "at times, and for amusement only. I am a portraitist." And he pointed proudly to the picture against the wall.
For they are all alike, these painters—proudest of what they do least well!
"Ah! Then," said Caffiard, with an air of resignation, "I must ask monsieur's pardon, and descend. I am not interested in portraits. When it comes to caricatures"—
"They are well enough in their way," put in Pierre, "but as a serious affair—to sell, for instance—well, monsieur comprehends that one does not debauch one's art!"