It was a pleasure to Phil to see Helia in the midst of their cooings and the beating of their wings. They came to eat from her hand. As one of them lighted on her shoulder, Helia had an inspiration. She took the dove and gave a long kiss to its wings.
“Here, Phil! Do like me!” she said, presenting the other wing to him. “And now, fly away!” she added, letting loose the bird, who in its flight seemed to sow Paris with kisses.
And so the days passed. It was usually in the afternoons that they met. In the mornings Phil worked and Helia studied at home or else rehearsed at the circus. Poufaille took care of the garden. The inspector made his rounds, and sometimes, in the afternoon, watched Helia and Phil from his hiding-place behind a bush.
The old man “of my time” confessed that lovers still existed, and that these were real and kissed each other as they did in “his time” under the Third Empire. But usually they were alone. Suzanne came only now and then to pick a rose.
“What bears you are!” she said as she looked at Phil and Helia. “How can you stay in this desert, with nothing but flowers and flowers, and pigeons and pigeons? You’ll not come to the Bon Marché? Good-by, then!” And she would go tumbling down the stairs.
Phil painted a few studies from Helia. She posed for her portrait amid the flowers. Sometimes, in hours of discouragement, when his work went badly and his future seemed doubtful and the struggle became too painful, Phil would dream as he looked at Helia.
“I will take her out of the life she is leading,” he said to himself. “I’ve promised her! I will tear her from her surroundings; I will make a cultivated woman of her yet. It is God who has led her to cross my path. I—I—”
And for a long time he would remain lost in thought.
In truth, it was a serious moment for him. Phil was too young, too much left to himself, to be content for any length of time with this simple rôle of friendship. He was caught at his own game; and, seeing her day by day more beautiful and good, it seemed to him that he could no longer live without her.
What, then? Should he play with love, taking it for a toy? Should he fashion her heart only to break it? No! The blood which his veins inherited forbade him such meanness. He would have despised himself as if he had been the dust of Sodom.