“It was a friend of ours,” said Anastasia, “who is a great sculptor, or, at least, who is going to be. He has fallen in love with your daughter, as indeed we all have.”
“Oh, it is so good of you to take her out. Already I see a difference in her. I would not have her grow up like the children of the streets, and it is so hard when one is poor and has to work every moment of one’s time. As for this picture, thank the Monsieur. Say I will treasure it.”
We promised to do so, and left her singing gaily by the open window as she resumed her everlasting toil.
So it has come about that nearly every afternoon we sit in the Luxembourg enjoying the mellow sunshine, with the little girl playing around us. We know many people by sight, for the same ones come day after day. There by the terrace of the Queens we watch the toy yachts careening in the basin, the boys playing diabolo, the sauntering students with their sweethearts. Anastasia works industriously on some Spanish embroidery, I read for the twentieth time one of my manuscripts, while the Môme leaps and laughs as she keeps a shuttlecock bounding in the air. Her eyes are very bright now, and her delicate cheeks have a rosy stain. Then, when over the great trees the Western sky is aglow, when the fountain turns to flame, and a charmed light lingers in the groves, slowly we go home. Days of grateful memory, for in them do I come to divine the deepest soul of Paris, that which is Youth and Love.
CHAPTER VI
GETTING DOWN TO CASES
“Anastasia,” I said with a sigh, “did I ever tell you of Gwendolin?”
“No; what is it?” she asked, and her face had rather an anxious expression.
“Gwendolin was a girl, a very nice girl, a trained nurse; and we were engaged.”
“What you mean? She was your fiancée?”
“Yes, she was one of my fiancées.”