"There's nothing that takes me so much out of the nineteenth century after Christ," he said dreamily, "as this little French café. It wafts me back to my early student days, that lie somewhere amid the enchanted mists of the youth of the world; to the zestful toil of the studios, to the careless trips in quaint, gray Holland or flaming, devil-may-care Spain. Ah! what scenes shift and shuffle in the twinkle of the gas-jet in this opalescent liquid; the hot shimmer of the arena at the Seville bull-fight, with its swirl of color and movement; the torchlight procession of pilgrims round the church at Lourdes, with the one black nun praying by herself in a shadowy corner; the lovely valley of the Tauba, where the tinkle of the sheep-bells mingles with the Lutheran hymn blown to the four winds from the old church tower; wines that were red—sunshine that was warm—mandolines—!" His voice died away as in exquisite reverie.
"And the East?" I said slily.
A good-natured smile dissipated his delicious dream.
"Ah, yes," he said. "My East was the Tyrol."
"The Tyrol? How do you mean?"
"I see you won't let me out of that story."
"Oh, there's a story, is there?"
"Oh, well, perhaps not what you literary chaps would call a story! No love-making in it, you know."
"Then it can wait. Tell me about your picture."
"But that's mixed up with the story."