beset him, and crossing the bridge, he spent the remainder of the evening reading in one of the cafés near Les Magasins du Louvre.
The next morning, when he awoke, a pneumatique was waiting for him. It was from Elinor, and read:
“Darling, where are you? Are you still recovering from the great debauch, or have you given us the go-by, or what? The suspense is awful—won’t you say it ain’t so, and come to lunch with us today at half-past twelve? We’ll be waiting for you at the studio.—ELINOR”—Below this in a round and almost childish hand, was written: “We want to see you. We missed you yesterday.—ANN.”
He read this brief and casual little note over again and again, he laughed exultantly, and smote his fist into the air and read again. All of the old impossible joy was revived in him. He went to the window and looked out: a lemony sunlight was falling on the old pale walls and roofs and chimney-pots of Paris: everything sparkled with health and hope and work and morning—and all because two girls from Boston in New England had written him a note.
He held the flimsy paper of the pneumatique tenderly, as if it were a sacred parchment too old and precious for rough handling; he even lifted it to his nose and smelled it. It seemed to him that all the subtle, sensuous femininity of the two women was in it—the seductive and thrilling fragrance, impalpable and glorious as the fragrance of a flower, which their lives seemed to irradiate and to give to everything, to everyone they touched, a sense of triumph, joy and tenderness. He read the one blunt line that Ann had written him as if it were poetry of haunting magic: the level, blunt and toneless inflexibility of her voice sounded in the line as if she had spoken; he read into her simple words a thousand buried meanings—the tenderness of a profound, simple and inarticulate spirit, whose feelings were too deep for language, who had no words for them.
When he got to the studio he found the two women waiting, but Starwick was not there. Ann was quietly, bluntly matter of fact as usual; Elinor almost hilariously gay, but beneath her gaiety he sensed at once a deep and worried perturbation, a worn anxiety that shone nakedly from her troubled eyes.
They told him that on their return from Rheims, Starwick had left the
