“This tea-habit dates from ‘Sweet Anne’s’ time, doesn’t it?” asked the Vicomte.
“I believe it does. Do you remember the flat in the Rue Vaugirard? And Anne pouring out tea on winter afternoons?”
Before the other man could answer, he turned to the picture again.
“I painted that as a sort of memory of the first day I saw her, in an old English garden. Did I ever tell you how we four, the old four, you know, first met Anne Page? You only knew her here in Paris, when she had learnt to dress, when she had learnt to talk, when she had grown used to us and our ways. We saw her in her garden, when she knew no one, when from year’s end to year’s end she spoke to no one but the invalid old woman with whom she lived.”
“What were you four doing in her garden?” inquired the Vicomte, helping himself to sugar.
“Well, René was in England. He was often there, visiting his relations—his mother’s people.
“You know he was educated in England? Went to school there, to Beaumont, and afterwards lived some time in London. René was an Englishman with at least half his nature. And he loved England because of his mother. Well, he wrote to me that year—to Thouret, Dacier and me, to suggest that we should join him for the summer. He told us he’d found a gorgeous village, where we could all paint and write, and go on with our beastly art as much as we liked. We thought it wouldn’t be bad, so we said all right, and packed up our traps and went.
“Have some more tea? Well, another cigarette?
“Dymfield is in Warwickshire, mon cher,” he went on, striking a match, “and Warwickshire is Shakespeare’s county, and Anne Page is one of Shakespeare’s women. So it was all as right as it could be.
“We put up at the inn. The Falcon it was called. Such a jolly old place! Sixteenth century. Yawning fireplaces, beams, oak staircases, walls a yard thick. You know the sort of thing.