“Yes; but don’t you understand? I don’t want my friends to know that I am an artist.”
“And, for Heaven’s sake, why not?”
“Well, for one thing, they would laugh at me.”
“Laugh at you for being an artist! Sacred Heaven! what a funny man you are, and what funny friends you must have! And why should they laugh at you for being an artist?”
“Well, you see, they don’t know anything about art, for one thing.”
“Ah, I can see those friends of yours!” said Garnier, with an inspired air. “Old religious ladies, aunts, and what not,—they drive in carriages with pug dogs,—and old gentlemen with the Legion of Honor.”
“Not at all; my friends are quite young.”
“Who are they, then?”
“Well, there is Eugène Valfray, son of the railway man.”