"Monsieur," he said in French, "have the goodness to inform me how many persons have passed through the turnstile this morning?"
The man looked at him without interest, though with some surprise. 'Not many of the world were to be seen at such an hour,' he informed him. 'So far, he had admitted two gentlemen—artists, and three ladies—American.'
The Irishman waved his hand toward the turnstile.
"In with you! The world forgetting, by the world forgot!"
His ease of manner was contagious. Whatever misgivings had assailed the boy were banished with this reassurance, and his confidence flowed back as the custodian took the two-franc piece and the turnstile clicked twice, making them free of the long, bare galleries that opened in front of them.
Inured as he was to cold, he shivered as they passed into the first of these long rooms, and involuntarily buried his chin in the collar of his coat. The chill of the place was vaultlike; the cold, gray light that penetrated it held nothing of the sun's comfort, while the small, black stove set in the middle of the room was a mere travesty of warmth.
"God bless my soul!" began the Irishman, "this is art for art's sake—"
But there he stopped, for his companion, with the impetuosity of his temperament, had suddenly caught sight of a picture that interested him, and had darted across the room, leaving him to his own reflections.
The boy was standing perfectly still, entirely engrossed, when he came silently up behind him, and paused to look over his shoulder. They were alone in the vast and chilly room save for one attendant who dozed over some knitting in a corner near the door. Away into the distance stretched the other rooms, bound one to the other like links in a chain. From the third of these came the penetrating voices of the American ladies, descanting unhesitatingly upon the pictures; while in the second the two artists could be seen flitting from one canvas to another with a restless, nervous activity.
These facts came subconsciously to the Irishman, for his eyes and his thoughts were for the boy and the subject of the boy's interest—a picture curiously repulsive, yet curiously binding in its realism of conception. It was a large canvas that formed one of a group of five or six studies by a particular artist. The details of the picture scarcely held the mind, for the imagination of the beholder was instantly caught and enchained by the central figure—the figure of a great ape, painted with cruel and extraordinary truth. The animal was squatting upon the ground, devouring a luscious fruit; its small and greedy eyes were alight with gluttony; in its unbridled appetite, its hairy fingers crushed the fruit against its sharp teeth, while the juice dripped from its mouth.