“Say, young man,” whispered Socrate, who was master of himself in any crowd, “you couldn’t lend me twenty francs?”
After this glorious day Phil’s existence seemed flat. From his childhood he had been accustomed to free air, to liberty in great spaces; and now he had to live a cloistered life, shut up in himself, but with work, it is true, for distraction. He worked sadly and alone.
In front of his window, on the other side of the Seine, stretched the Louvre. Beyond, far away, above the smoke of Paris, the church of the Sacré-Cœur lifted its Oriental dome. To the right was the Pont Neuf with the point of the island of the Cité and Notre Dame; to the left was the greenery of the Tuileries, the Grand Palais, the Arc de Triomphe.
Now and then Suzanne came. But Suzanne was far from being Helia. Her frivolity made Phil shy, though her babbling talk amused him. She kept Phil posted, telling him all the important news.
Poufaille, for example, was surely going to give up sculpture and become a painter—l’Institut would have to look out for itself! They had rejected his statue. “Eh bien, they’ll see! And then, paintings sell better!” added Suzanne.
“Does he sell his paintings?” Phil asked with astonishment. “What does he do for a living?”
“He has something to do at the Louvre, I believe,” Suzanne said. But she immediately became silent and bit her lip.
“A copy, of course—ornaments for a plafond?” Phil asked.
“I believe so,” Suzanne answered, fearing to say too much.
“There is some secret,” Phil thought.