The Luxembourg Gardens were glowing with flowers.
Hastings walked slowly along the broad tree-lined paths, passing weathered marble statues and old stone columns. He followed the grove past the bronze lion and reached the terrace above the fountain.
Below him, the fountain basin flashed in the sunlight. Flowering almond trees surrounded the terrace, while farther away, chestnut trees curved down toward the damp thickets beside the western wing of the palace.
At one end of the avenue stood the Observatory, its white domes rising like the towers of some Eastern mosque. At the other stood the heavy old palace, every window blazing under the fierce June sun.
Around the fountain, children and nurses in white caps were pushing little toy boats with bamboo poles. The sails hung limp in the warm air.
A dark-skinned policeman with red epaulettes and a ceremonial sword watched them for a while. Then he marched off toward a young man whose dog had been allowed to run loose.
The bull-dog was lying on its back, happily rubbing itself into the grass and dirt while its legs waved in the air.
The policeman pointed at the animal. He was too angry to speak.
“Well, Captain,” the young man said with a smile.
“Well, Monsieur Student,” the policeman growled.
“What do you want me to do?”
“If you don’t chain that dog, I’ll take him away!”
“What do I care, mon capitaine?”
“What? Isn’t that bull-dog yours?”
“If he were mine, don’t you think I’d chain him?”
The policeman stared at him.
Then, deciding that any student must be up to no good, he lunged for the dog.
The dog dodged him.
They raced around the flower beds, the policeman stumbling after the animal. Whenever the officer got too close, the bull-dog darted straight across a flower bed, which was hardly fair play.
The young man laughed.
The dog seemed to be enjoying himself just as much.
The policeman finally realized that chasing the dog was getting him nowhere.
He turned on the student instead.
“As the owner of this public nuisance, I arrest you!”
“But I don’t admit that the dog belongs to me,” the young man protested.
The policeman stared at him.
He had no answer to that.
Three gardeners eventually joined the chase, and together they managed to drive the dog away. The bull-dog promptly disappeared down the rue de Médicis.
The policeman trudged away toward the white-capped nurses, apparently looking for someone else to argue with.
The student checked his watch, stood up, and yawned.
Then he noticed Hastings.
He smiled and bowed.
Hastings walked over, laughing.
“Why, Clifford! I didn’t recognize you.”
“It’s the moustache,” Clifford sighed. “I sacrificed it to satisfy a whim of—of a friend. What do you think of my dog?”
“Then the dog really is yours?”
“Of course. It’s a pleasant change for him to play tag with policemen, but he’s become too well known now. I’ll have to stop it.”
“Where has he gone?”
“Home. He always goes home when the gardeners get involved. It’s a pity. He loves rolling around on the lawns.”
They talked for a few minutes about Hastings’s plans.
Clifford politely offered to introduce him at the studio.
“You see, old tabby—I mean Dr. Byram—told me about you before we met,” Clifford explained. “Elliott and I will be glad to help you in any way we can.”
He glanced at his watch again.
“I have exactly ten minutes to catch the Versailles train. Au revoir.”
He started away.
Then he noticed a young woman approaching the fountain.
He immediately took off his hat, smiling awkwardly.
“Why aren’t you at Versailles?” she asked.
She barely acknowledged Hastings.
“I—I am going,” Clifford murmured.
For a moment they stood facing each other.
Clifford suddenly turned very red.
“With your permission,” he stammered, “I have the honor of presenting my friend, Monsieur Hastings.”
Hastings bowed deeply.
The girl smiled sweetly, but there was a faint touch of mischief in the way she tilted her small Parisian head.
“I could have wished Monsieur Clifford had been able to spare me more time,” she said, “especially since he has brought such a charming American with him.”
“Must—must I go, Valentine?” Clifford asked.
“Certainly.”
Clifford turned reluctantly to leave.
“And give my dearest love to Cécile!”
He winced.
Then he disappeared down the rue d’Assas.
The girl turned as though she meant to leave too. Then she suddenly remembered Hastings and looked back at him.
“Monsieur Clifford is so completely harebrained,” she said with a smile. “Sometimes it is quite embarrassing.”
She paused.
“You have heard, of course, about his success at the Salon?”
Hastings looked puzzled.
She noticed immediately.
“You have been to the Salon, of course?”
“No. I only arrived in Paris three days ago.”
She seemed not to hear him.
“Nobody ever imagined he had enough energy to do anything worthwhile. But on varnishing day, the Salon was astonished when Monsieur Clifford appeared. He wandered around as calmly as you please, with an orchid in his buttonhole and a beautiful picture hanging in the best position.”
She smiled at the memory and looked toward the fountain.
“Monsieur Bouguereau told me that Monsieur Julian was so astonished he could only shake hands with Monsieur Clifford in a daze. He actually forgot to pat him on the back!”
She laughed.
“Imagine that. Papa Julian forgetting to pat someone on the back!”
Hastings was impressed by her familiarity with the famous artists.
“May I ask,” he said shyly, “whether you are a pupil of Monsieur Bouguereau?”
“I?”
She looked genuinely surprised.
Then she studied him carefully.
Was he joking with her after knowing her for only a few minutes?
His pleasant, serious face showed no sign of humor.
“Tiens,” she thought. “What a strange man.”
“You surely study art?” he asked.
She leaned back against the curved handle of her parasol.
“Why do you think so?”
“Because you speak as though you do.”
“You are making fun of me,” she said. “That isn’t very polite.”
She stopped when she saw him turn red from his collar to the roots of his hair.
“How long have you been in Paris?” she asked.
“Three days.”
“But surely you aren’t a nouveau?”
She looked surprised.
“You speak French far too well!”
After a moment she asked, “Are you really a nouveau?”
“I am.”
She sat down on the marble bench where Clifford had been sitting. She tilted her parasol over her head and looked at him.
“I don’t believe you.”
He understood that she meant it as a compliment.
For a moment he hesitated. He did not particularly want to admit that he was one of the inexperienced newcomers whom the older students looked down upon.
But he gathered his courage and told her frankly how little he knew about Paris and the art world.
His honesty made her blue eyes open wide.
Her lips parted in a sweet smile.
“You have never seen a studio?”
“Never.”
“Nor a model?”
“No.”
“How funny.”
She said it with such solemnity that they both began to laugh.
“And you,” Hastings said, “have seen studios?”
“Hundreds.”
“And models?”
“Millions.”
“And you know Monsieur Bouguereau?”
“Yes. And Henner, Constant, Laurens, Puvis de Chavannes, Dagnan, Courtois—and all the rest of them.”
“And yet you say you’re not an artist.”
She looked at him gravely.
“Pardon me. Did I say I wasn’t?”
“Won’t you tell me?”
She shook her head and smiled.
Then suddenly her eyes dropped.
She began drawing little shapes in the gravel with the tip of her parasol.
Hastings sat beside her, resting his elbows on his knees as he watched the spray drifting above the fountain.
A small boy dressed as a sailor stood nearby, poking at his toy yacht.
“I won’t go home! I won’t go home!”
His nurse raised both hands toward heaven.
“Just like a little American boy,” Hastings thought.
A sudden ache of homesickness passed through him.
The nurse finally caught the boat.
The little boy stood facing her defiantly.
“Monsieur René, when you decide to come home, you may have your boat.”
The boy backed away angrily.
“Give me my boat!”
He pointed at her.
“And don’t call me René! My name is Randall, and you know it!”
“Hello!” Hastings exclaimed. “Randall? That’s an English name.”
“I am American,” the boy announced in perfect English.
He turned toward Hastings.
“And she’s such a fool. She calls me René because Mama calls me Ranny—”
Before he could finish, he dodged the furious nurse and hid behind Hastings.
Hastings laughed and caught him around the waist, lifting him onto his lap.
“One of my countrymen,” he said to the girl.
He smiled, but there was an unexpected tightness in his throat.
“Don’t you see the Stars and Stripes on my yacht?” Randall demanded.
Hastings looked.
Sure enough, the American flag hung limply from the toy boat beneath the nurse’s arm.
“Oh!” the girl cried. “He’s adorable.”
She leaned down impulsively to kiss the boy.
But Randall wriggled out of Hastings’s arms.
The nurse immediately grabbed him and gave the girl an angry look.
The girl’s face turned red.
She bit her lip as the nurse, still glaring at her, dragged the child away and deliberately wiped his lips with her handkerchief.
Then the girl glanced at Hastings.
She bit her lip again.
“What an ill-tempered woman,” Hastings said. “In America, nurses are usually pleased when people kiss their children.”
For a moment the girl lifted her parasol to hide her face.
Then she snapped it shut and looked at him defiantly.
“Do you really think it strange that she objected?”
“Why not?”
She studied him with quick, searching eyes.
His eyes were clear and bright.
He smiled at her.
“Why not?”
“You are very droll,” she murmured, lowering her head.
“Why?”
She said nothing.
She sat quietly, drawing circles and curves in the dust with her parasol.
After a while Hastings spoke again.
“I am glad to see that young people have so much freedom here.”
She looked up.
“I had understood that the French were quite different from us. Where I come from in America, girls have a great deal of freedom. They go out alone and receive friends without anyone watching over them.”
He smiled.
“I was afraid I would miss that here. But now I see I was wrong.”
She raised her eyes to his and held his gaze.
He continued cheerfully.
“Since I’ve been sitting here, I’ve seen several pretty girls walking alone on the terrace. And you’re here alone too.”
He hesitated.
“Tell me, because I don’t know French customs. Are girls allowed to go to the theater without a chaperone?”
She studied his face for a long moment.
Then she smiled nervously.
“Why do you ask me?”
“Because you must know.”
“Yes,” she replied casually. “I know.”
He waited.
When she said nothing more, he wondered if she had misunderstood his question.
“I hope you don’t think I’m taking advantage of our short acquaintance,” he began. “Actually, I don’t even know your name. When Monsieur Clifford introduced me, he only gave you my name. Is that the French custom?”
“It is the custom in the Latin Quarter.”
There was a strange light in her eyes.
Then she began speaking almost feverishly.
“You must understand, Monsieur Hastings, that we are all a little sans gêne here in the Latin Quarter. We are very Bohemian. Etiquette and ceremony don’t matter much.”
She hurried on.
“That is why Monsieur Clifford introduced you to me so casually and then left us together so casually. Only for that reason. I am his friend, and I have many friends in the Latin Quarter. We all know each other very well.”
She hesitated.
“And I am not studying art, but—but—”
“But what?”
“I won’t tell you. It’s a secret.”
She gave him an uncertain smile.
A pink flush had appeared on both cheeks, and her eyes were unusually bright.
Then, almost at once, her expression changed.
“Do you know Monsieur Clifford very well?”
“Not very well.”
After a moment she turned toward him again, serious and slightly pale.
“My name is Valentine. Valentine Tissot.”
She hesitated.
“Might I ask you for a favor, even though we have known each other for such a short time?”
“Of course. I would be honored.”
“It is very simple.”
She lowered her voice.
“Promise me that you will not speak to Monsieur Clifford about me.”
Hastings stared at her.
“Promise me you will not speak to anyone about me.”
“I promise.”
He was completely puzzled.
She laughed nervously.
“I wish to remain a mystery. It is only a whim of mine.”
“But I had hoped—” Hastings began. “I had hoped Monsieur Clifford might bring me to your house and introduce me to your family.”
“My—my house?”
“I mean where you live. I thought he might introduce me to your family.”
The change in her expression shocked him.
“I beg your pardon,” he said quickly. “I’ve upset you.”
She understood at once.
“My parents are dead,” she said quietly.
After a moment he spoke again, much more gently.
“Would it displease you if I asked you to receive me? Isn’t that the custom?”
“I cannot.”
She looked up at him.
“I am sorry. I should like to. But believe me, I cannot.”
He bowed solemnly, looking uneasy.
“It isn’t because I don’t want to see you. I—I like you. You have been very kind to me.”
“Kind?”
He looked surprised.
She nodded.
“I like you,” she said slowly. “And if you wish, we can see each other sometimes.”
“At your friends’ houses?”
“No. Not at friends’ houses.”
“Then where?”
“Here.”
She met his eyes defiantly.
“Here?”
“Yes.”
Hastings laughed.
“Why, in Paris you are much more liberal in your ideas than we are.”
She looked at him curiously.
“Yes. We are very Bohemian.”
“I think it’s charming,” he declared.
She hesitated, then made a small, timid gesture toward the statues of the dead queens standing in solemn rows above the terrace.
“You see, we shall be in the best society.”
He looked at her with delight.
She brightened when she saw that her little joke had pleased him.
“Indeed,” she said, smiling, “I shall be very well chaperoned.”
She pointed around them.
“You see, we are under the protection of the gods themselves.”
She began counting the statues on her gloved fingers.
“There are Apollo, Juno, and Venus. And Ceres, Hercules, and—”
She stopped.
“I can’t make out who that one is.”
Hastings looked up at the winged figure whose shadow fell over them.
“Why,” he said, “it’s Love.”