plants rose up like plumes.  Overhead, the studio was a marvel, though rather small and without a picture visible.  The walls, indeed, were entirely covered with Oriental hangings, while at one end rose up a huge chimney-piece with chimerical monsters supporting the tablet, and at the other extremity appeared a vast couch under a tent—­the latter quite a monument, with lances upholding the sumptuous drapery, above a collection of carpets, furs and cushions heaped together almost on a level with the flooring.

Claude looked at it all, and there came to his lips a question which he held back—­Was all this paid for?  Fagerolles, who had been decorated with the Legion of Honour the previous year, now asked, it was said, ten thousand francs for painting a mere portrait.  Naudet, who, after launching him, duly turned his success to profit in a methodical fashion, never let one of his pictures go for less than twenty, thirty, forty thousand francs.  Orders would have fallen on the painter’s shoulders as thick as hail, if he had not affected the disdain, the weariness of the man whose slightest sketches are fought for.  And yet all this display of luxury smacked of indebtedness, there was only so much paid on account to the upholsterers; all the money —­the money won by lucky strokes as on ’Change—­slipped through the artist’s fingers, and was spent without trace of it remaining.  Moreover, Fagerolles, still in the full flush of his sudden good fortune, did not calculate or worry, being confident that he would always sell his works at higher and higher prices, and feeling glorious at the high position he was acquiring in contemporary art.

Eventually, Claude espied a little canvas on an ebony easel, draped with red plush.  Excepting a rosewood tube case and box of crayons, forgotten on an article of furniture, nothing reminding one of the artistic profession could be seen lying about.

‘Very finely treated,’ said Claude, wishing to be amiable, as he stood in front of the little canvas.  ’And is your picture for the Salon sent?’

’Ah! yes, thank heavens!  What a number of people I had here!  A perfect procession which kept me on my legs from morning till evening during a week.  I didn’t want to exhibit it, as it lowers one to do so, and Naudet also opposed it.  But what would you have done?  I was so begged and prayed; all the young fellows want to set me on the committee, so that I may defend them.  Oh! my picture is simple enough—­I call it “A Picnic.”  There are a couple of gentlemen and three ladies under some trees—­guests at some chateau, who have brought a collation with them and are eating it in a glade.  You’ll see, it’s rather original.’

He spoke in a hesitating manner, and when his eyes met those of Claude, who was looking at him fixedly, he lost countenance altogether, and joked about the little canvas on the easel.

’That’s a daub Naudet asked me for.  Oh!  I’m not ignorant of what I lack—­a little of what you have too much of, old man.  You know that I’m still your friend; why, I defended you only yesterday with some painters.’