“Then it’s for to-morrow, Phil?”
Phil begged her to stay.
“No; I will come back,” said Helia, “and we’ll pose to-morrow. I have so many things to do to-day—my costumer, my director, a new apparatus to try—I must hurry.”
“Phil has forgotten me,” said Helia to herself. “It had to come—I am nothing to him now!”
As she passed out of the door she was aware of the perfume of the violets which Miss Rowrer had let fall.
CHAPTER IV
WHEN PHIL CAME TO PARIS
As Helia felt, Phil was, indeed, no longer the same. This was no more the Phil who had loved her in the old days.
When the Phil who did not go into “society,” and knew neither duke nor Miss Rowrer,—when that Phil came to Paris, after parting from Helia in the courtyard near the circus, he hastened to the Hôtel des Artistes, of which Helia had told him, treasuring in his pocket her letter that recommended him to Suzanne. Evening was falling, the street was dark, the house somber. Maillots were drying at windows. An invisible musical clown was picking out on his bottles lugubrious tunes. But Phil thought of Helia, and was gay.
That night he slept little. He was in a hurry for the morning, in order that he might carry Helia’s letter to Mlle. Suzanne. He flung his window wide, and heard Paris murmuring in the dark.
“Your name and profession,” said the landlady next morning, as he came down. Phil signed the register, writing underneath: