Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/145

Mademoiselle Musette and paid her “highly-colored court,” as he put it to Rodolphe. He even went so far as to propose to the pretty girl to buy her furniture handsomer than the last with the result of the sale of his famous picture “The Passage of the Red Sea.” Hence the artist saw with pain the moment arrive when it became necessary to part from Musette, who, whilst allowing him to kiss her hands, neck and sundry other accessories, gently repulsed him every time that he tried violently to burgle her heart.

On reaching Paris, Rodolphe left his friend with the girl, who asked the artist to see her to her door.

“Will you allow me to call on you?” asked Marcel; “I will paint your portrait.”

“My dear fellow,” replied she, “I cannot give you my address, since to-morrow I may no longer have one; but I will call and see you, and I will mend your coat, which has a whole so big that one could shoot the moon through it.”

“I will await your coming like that of the Messiah,” said Marcel.

“ Not quite so long,” said Musette, laughing.

“What a charming girl,” said Marcel to himself, as he slowly walked away; “she is the Goddess of Mirth. I will make two holes in my coat.”

He had not gone twenty paces before he felt himself tapped on the shoulder. It was Mademoiselle Musette.

“My dear Monsieur Marcel,” said she, “are you a true knight? ”

“I am. ‘Rubens and my lady,’ that is my motto.”

“Well, then, hearken to my woes and pity take, most noble sir,” returned Musette, who was slightly tinged with literature, although she murdered grammar in fine style; “the landlord has taken away the key of my room and it is eleven o’clock at night. Do you understand?”