On the way down the street Clutton said to him:
“You’ve made an impression on Fanny Price.
You’d better look out.”
Philip laughed. He had never seen anyone on whom
he wished less to make an impression. They came
to the cheap little restaurant at which several of
the students ate, and Clutton sat down at a table at
which three or four men were already seated.
For a franc, they got an egg, a plate of meat, cheese,
and a small bottle of wine. Coffee was extra.
They sat on the pavement, and yellow trams passed
up and down the boulevard with a ceaseless ringing
of bells.
“By the way, what’s your name?”
said Clutton, as they took their seats.
“Carey.”
“Allow me to introduce an old and trusted friend,
Carey by name,” said Clutton gravely. “Mr.
Flanagan, Mr. Lawson.”
They laughed and went on with their conversation.
They talked of a thousand things, and they all talked
at once. No one paid the smallest attention to
anyone else. They talked of the places they had
been to in the summer, of studios, of the various
schools; they mentioned names which were unfamiliar
to Philip, Monet, Manet, Renoir, Pissarro, Degas.
Philip listened with all his ears, and though he felt
a little out of it, his heart leaped with exultation.
The time flew. When Clutton got up he said:
“I expect you’ll find me here this evening
if you care to come. You’ll find this about
the best place for getting dyspepsia at the lowest
cost in the Quarter.”
Philip walked down the Boulevard du Montparnasse.
It was not at all like the Paris he had seen in the
spring during his visit to do the accounts of the
Hotel St. Georges—he thought already of
that part of his life with a shudder—but
reminded him of what he thought a provincial town must
be. There was an easy-going air about it, and
a sunny spaciousness which invited the mind to day-dreaming.
The trimness of the trees, the vivid whiteness of
the houses, the breadth, were very agreeable; and he
felt himself already thoroughly at home. He sauntered
along, staring at the people; there seemed an elegance
about the most ordinary, workmen with their broad
red sashes and their wide trousers, little soldiers
in dingy, charming uniforms. He came presently
to the Avenue de l’Observatoire, and he gave
a sigh of pleasure at the magnificent, yet so graceful,
vista. He came to the gardens of the Luxembourg:
children were playing, nurses with long ribbons walked
slowly two by two, busy men passed through with satchels
under their arms, youths strangely dressed. The
scene was formal and dainty; nature was arranged and
ordered, but so exquisitely, that nature unordered
and unarranged seemed barbaric. Philip was enchanted.
It excited him to stand on that spot of which he had
read so much; it was classic ground to him; and he
felt the awe and the delight which some old don might
feel when for the first time he looked on the smiling
plain of Sparta.
