Part 9 (1/2)
”Not such a very poor way,” he said. ”There is no secret about it. I had five thousand pounds that had been settled on my mother, and fortunately that was not affected by the smash, so I have two hundred a year, which is amply sufficient for my wants.”
”It is enough, of course, to live upon in a way, Cuthbert, but so different from what you were accustomed to.”
”I don't suppose you spend two hundred a year,” he said, with a smile.
”Oh, no, but a woman is so different. That is just what I have, and of course I don't spend anything like all of it; but as I said, it is so different with you, who have been accustomed to spend ever so much more.”
”I don't find myself in any way pinched. I can a.s.sure you my lodgings in the Quartier Latin are not what you would call sumptuous, but they are comfortable enough, and they do not stand me in a quarter of what I paid for my chambers in London. I can dine sumptuously on a franc and a half.
Another franc covers my breakfast, which is generally _cafe au lait_ and two eggs; another franc suffices for supper. So you see that my necessaries of life, including lodgings and fuel, do not come to anything like half my income, and I can spend the rest in riotous living if I choose.”
The girl looked at him earnestly.
”You are not growing cynical, I hope, Cuthbert?”
”I hope not. I am certainly not conscious of it. I don't look cynical, do I?”
”No,” she said, doubtfully. ”I do not see any change in you, but what do you do with yourself?”
”I paint,” he said.
”Really!”
”Really and truly, I have become what you wanted me to become, a very earnest person indeed, and some day people may even take to buying my pictures.”
”I never quite know when you are in earnest, Cuthbert; but if it is true it is very good news. Do you mean that you are really studying?”
”I am indeed. I work at the studio of one M. Goude, and if you choose to inquire, you will find he is perhaps the best master in Paris. I am afraid the Prussians are going to interrupt my studies a good deal. This has made me angry and I have enlisted--that is to say, been sworn in as a member of the Cha.s.seurs des ecoles, which most of the students at Goude's have joined.”
”What! You are going to fight against the Germans!” she exclaimed, indignantly. ”You never can mean it, Cuthbert.”
”I mean it, I can a.s.sure you,” he said, amused at her indignation. ”I suppose you are almost Germanized, and regard their war against the French as a just and holy cause.”
”Certainly I do,” she said, ”though of course, I should not say so here.
I am in France and living in a French family, and naturally I would say nothing that would hurt the feelings of the people round me, but there can be no doubt that the French deserve all the misfortunes that have fallen upon them. They would have invaded Germany, and all these poor young Germans have been torn away from their friends and families to fight.”
”So have these young Frenchmen. To my mind the war was deliberately forced upon France, but I think we had better agree to differ on this subject. You have been among Germans and it is not unnatural that you should have accepted their version. I have been living among Frenchmen, and although I do not say that it would not have been much wiser if they had avoided falling into the pit dug for them, my sympathies are wholly with them, except in this outburst of folly that has resulted in the establishment, for a time at any rate, of a Republic. Now, I have no sympathy whatever with Republics, still less for a Republic controlled by political adventurers, and like many Frenchmen I am going to fight for France, and in no way for the Republic. At any rate let us agree to avoid the subject altogether. We shall never convince each other however much we might argue it over.”
The girl was silent for two or three minutes, and then said--
”Well, we will agree not to quarrel over it. I don't know how it is that we always see things so differently, Cuthbert. However, we may talk about your doings without arguing over the cause. Of course you do not suppose there will be much fighting--a week or two will see the end of it all.”
”Again we differ,” he said. ”I believe that there will be some sharp fighting, and I believe that Paris will hold out for months.”
She looked at him incredulously.
”I should have thought,” she said, after a pause, ”you were the last person who would take this noisy shouting mob seriously.”
”I don't think anything of the mob one way or the other,” he said. ”I despise them utterly; but the troops and the mobiles are sufficient to man the forts and the walls, and I believe that middle-cla.s.s corps, like the one I have entered, will fight manfully; and the history of Paris has shown over and over again that the mob of Paris, fickle, vain-headed, noisy braggadocios as they are, and always have been, can at least starve well. They held out against Henry of Navarre till numbers dropped dead in the streets, and until the Spaniards came at last from the Netherlands and raised the siege, and I believe they will hold out now. They have courage enough, as has been shown over and over again at the barricades, but they will be useless for fighting because they will submit to no discipline. Still, as I said, they can starve, and it will be a long time indeed before the suffering will become intense enough to drive them to surrender. I fear that you have altogether underrated the gravity of the situation, and that you will have very severe privations to go through before the siege is over.”