The
Barings might have given their suppers. As for their
studio--there was no untidier jumble of old armor and
brasses and Spanish leather in Paris; and Mme. George
posing in the middle in soiled tea-gowns! But the
suppers suddenly stopped, and the leather and Persian
hangings went to the Jews. I met Lisa one day coming out
of the Vendome, where she had been trying to peddle a
roll of George's sketches to the rich Americans. I asked
her what was wrong, and she laughed and said, "We were
trying to make thirty francs do the work of thirty
thousand. And we have made up our minds that we know no
more of art than house painters. We are in a blind
alley!" Soon after that the baby was born. They went
down to Brittany. I hear that Lisa, since the child
came, has been ill. I tell all this dreary stuff to you
thinking that you may pass it on to their folks.
Somebody ought to go to their relief.'"
"Relief!" exclaimed Miss Vance. "And the money that they
were flinging into the gutter was earned day by day
by his old mother! Every dollar of it! I know that
during the last year she has done without proper clothes
and food to send their allowance to them."
"You forget," said Lucy, "that George Waldeaux was doing
noble work in the world. It was a small thing for his
mother to help him."
"Noble work? His pictures or his sermons, Lucy?"
demanded Miss Vance, with a contemptuous shrug.
Lucy without reply walked out to the inn garden and
seated herself in a shady corner.
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