“Really? Then get in here with us, I beg of you,” said Ethel.
Phil excused himself,—his dress, his black eye.
“You’re all right as you are,” Ethel replied. “You’ll really oblige me by coming with us”—and she seated him beside the duke.
“Your dress doesn’t trouble us, since it pleases you,” she continued. “Be yourself, and look out at the world from the neck of a sweater—there’ll always be people enough to look loftily over a choker. If I were a man I would always defend the weak and pay no attention to the rest. You’re all right as you are, Monsieur Phil.”
“He approached in visible embarrassment”
Phil listened to Ethel with intense satisfaction. The duke chatted with grandma. The good-fellowship which he saw growing up between Miss Rowrer and Phil did not bother him. It was only the ordinary relations between an American girl and boy—only the friendship of fellow country people. The duke had for Phil that distant regard which nobles by race have for professionals. To handle a tool, even such as the painter’s brush or sculptor’s chisel,—to do something with one’s hands, be it even a masterpiece,—lowers a man somewhat in their consideration. Consequently Phil might defend strong or weak, or dog-martyrs, if it amused him—it was a matter of no importance. The duke gave himself up to the noble occupation of a cicerone of mark, who knew his Paris thoroughly; and, as they passed, he pointed out the monuments to grandma.
Phil, on his side, talked with Ethel en camarade, as the duke said. What a pleasure such talks were to him! Where were now his fine resolutions no longer to make himself the champion of Miss Rowrer, and even to stop seeing her? He drifted along under the charm of her words. From the day when, in the duke’s company, he had first met her at the Comtesse de Donjeon’s, he had become one of the faithful at her tea-parties. He often went to the Rue Servandoni; and, after the commission for the empress’s portrait and Ethel’s entrance as a pupil in his studio, they had had the most friendly relations.
Phil told her stories from bohemia that amused her. He narrated his adventures in the provinces, including the little Saint John, with his arrival in Paris and his visit to Poufaille and Suzanne; the “comrades,” and Socrate, and the Deux-Magots; his reception at the studio; and the welcome on the model’s table; and many other things besides. But he said little about Helia’s stay in Paris when he was a student. For that matter, he thought of it seldom; his memory was a mist concerning it—it all seemed so far away to him.