So I gave her Lorrimer’s address, and she seemed more than grateful.
“Thank you very much. Shall I see you again soon?”
“Perhaps; but remember, not a word of Napoli.”
“No; trust me. I am very discreet. Well, au revoir.”
With that she took her departure, and once more I felt that I had emerged successfully from a dangerous situation.
On the following day I hired a voiture à bras, and loading on it my few poor sticks of furniture I easily pulled the load to my new residence. Once there, it was surprising how soon I made the place homelike. Anastasia was coming out of the hospital the following day, and I was intensely eager that everything should be cheerful. Fortunately, the window admitted much sunlight, and the slope of the roof lent itself to quaint and snug effects of decoration. I really did wonders with drapings of cheap cotton, made a lounge and a cosy corner out of cushions, contrived a wardrobe (in view of an increase in our prosperity), and constructed two cunning cupboards within which all articles of mere utility were hid from sight.
Lorrimer dropped in and gave me a hand with the finishing touches. He also loaned me three lifesize paintings in oil to adorn my walls. They were studies for the forthcoming Salon picture that was to mark a crisis in his career, and showed Rougette in different poses of the nude. I did not think it worth while to say anything about Lucretia just then.
Helstern, too, came to see how things were progressing and contributed two clay figures, also of the nude; so that by the time everything was finished my garret had become quite a startling repository of feminine loveliness unadorned. The following morning I bought several bunches of flowers from a barrow, at two sous a bunch, and arranged them about the room. Then my two friends insisted on bringing up a supply of food and preparing lunch.
So I went off to the hospital to fetch Anastasia. I felt as excited as a child, and for the moment very happy. I had been to see her for a few moments every day, when she would hold my hand and sometimes carry it to her lips. She was of a deathly whiteness and more like a child than ever. As she came out leaning on my arm I saw another of those sobbing girls leaving the hospital with her baby.
“What an irony!” I said. “There’s a girl would give anything not to have that infant. It’s a reproach and a disgrace to her. It will only drag her down, prevent her making a living. It will be brought up in misery. And we who wanted one so much, and would have made it so happy, must go away empty-handed.”