’You are all painters, aren’t you?  How amusing!  But why do those three look as if they were sulking.  Just laugh a bit, or I shall make you, you’ll see!’

As a matter of fact, Sandoz, Claude, and Mahoudeau, quite taken aback, were watching her most gravely.  She herself remained listening, and, on hearing her companion come back, she hastily gave Fagerolles an appointment for the morrow.  Then, after replacing the cigarette between Jory’s lips, she strode off with her arms raised, and making a very comical grimace; in such wise that when the gentleman reappeared, looking sedate and somewhat pale, he found her in her former seat, still looking at the same engraving in the newspaper.  The whole scene had been acted so quickly, and with such jaunty drollery, that the two sergeants who sat nearby, good-natured fellows both of them, almost died of laughter as they shuffled their cards afresh.

In fact, Irma had taken them all by storm.  Sandoz declared that her name of Becot was very well suited for a novel; Claude asked whether she would consent to pose for a sketch; while Mahoudeau already pictured her as a Paris gamin, a statuette that would be sure to sell.  She soon went off, however, and behind the gentleman’s back she wafted kisses to the whole party, a shower of kisses which quite upset the impressionable Jory.

It was five o’clock, and the band ordered some more beer.  Some of the usual customers had taken possession of the adjacent tables, and these philistines cast sidelong glances at the artists’ corner, glances in which contempt was curiously mingled with a kind of uneasy deference.  The artists were indeed well known; a legend was becoming current respecting them.  They themselves were now talking on common-place subjects:  about the heat, the difficulty of finding room in the omnibus to the Odeon, and the discovery of a wine-shop where real meat was obtainable.  One of them wanted to start a discussion about a number of idiotic pictures that had lately been hung in the Luxembourg Museum; but there was only one opinion on the subject, that the pictures were not worth their frames.  Thereupon they left off conversing; they smoked, merely exchanging a word or a significant smile now and then.

‘Well,’ asked Claude at last, ‘are we going to wait for Gagniere?’

At this there was a protest.  Gagniere was a bore.  Besides, he would turn up as soon as he smelt the soup.

‘Let’s be off, then,’ said Sandoz.  ’There’s a leg of mutton this evening, so let’s try to be punctual.’

Each paid his score, and they all went out.  Their departure threw the cafe into a state of emotion.  Some young fellows, painters, no doubt, whispered together as they pointed at Claude, much in the same manner as if he were the redoubtable chieftain of a horde of savages.  Jory’s famous article was producing its effect; the very public was becoming his accomplice, and of itself was soon to found that school of the open air, which the band had so far only joked about.  As they gaily said, the Cafe Baudequin was not aware of the honour they had done it on the day when they selected it to be the cradle of a revolution.