'The marksman is getting sacked,' mused the onlooker, diagnosing the situation.
He was right. The next moment Paul, limp and depressed, had retired to the kitchen passage, discharged. It was here, after a few minutes, that Jeanne found him.
'Fool! Idiot! Imbecile!' said Jeanne.
Paul stared at her without speaking.
'To throw rolls at the patron. Imbecile!'
'He—' began Paul.
'Bah! And what if he did? Must you then attack him like a mad dog? What is it to you?'
Paul was conscious of a dull longing for sympathy, a monstrous sense of oppression. Everything was going wrong. Surely Jeanne must be touched by his heroism? But no. She was scolding furiously. Suppose Andromeda had turned and scolded Perseus after he had slain the sea-monster! Paul mopped his forehead with his napkin. The bottom had dropped out of his world.
'Jeanne!'
'Bah! Do not talk to me, idiot of a little man. Almost you lost me my place also. The patron was in two minds. But I coaxed him. A fine thing that would have been, to lose my good place through your foolishness. To throw rolls. My goodness!'
She swept back into the room again, leaving Paul still standing by the kitchen door. Something seemed to have snapped inside him. How long he stood there he did not know, but presently from the dining-room came calls of 'Waiter!' and automatically he fell once more into his work, as an actor takes up his part. A stranger would have noticed nothing remarkable in him. He bustled to and fro with undiminished energy.
At the end of the day M. Bredin paid him his eighteen shillings with a grunt, and Paul walked out of the restaurant a masterless man.
He went to his attic and sat down on the bed. Propped up against the wall was the picture. He looked at it with unseeing eyes. He stared dully before him.
Then thoughts came to him with a rush, leaping and dancing in his mind like imps in Hades. He had a curious sense of detachment. He seemed to be watching himself from a great distance.
This was the end. The little imps danced and leaped; and then one separated itself from the crowd, to grow bigger than, the rest, to pirouette more energetically. He rose. His mind was made up. He would kill himself.
He went downstairs and out into the street. He thought hard as he walked. He would kill himself, but how?
His preoccupation was so great that an automobile, rounding a corner, missed him by inches as he crossed the road. The chauffeur shouted angrily at him as he leapt back.
Paul shook his fist at the retreating lights.
'Pig!' he shouted. 'Assassin! Scoundrel! Villain! Would you kill me? I will take your number, rascal. I will inform the police. Villain!'
A policeman had strolled up and was eyeing him curiously. Paul turned to him, full of his wrongs.
'Officer,' he cried, 'I have a complaint. These pigs of chauffeurs! They are reckless. They drive so recklessly. Hence the great number of accidents.'
'Awful!' said the policeman. 'Pass along, sonny.'
Paul walked on, fuming. It was abominable that these chauffeurs—And then an idea came to him. He had found a way.
It was quiet in the Park. He had chosen the Park because it was dark and there would be none to see and interfere. He waited long in the shadow by the roadside. Presently from the darkness there came the distant drone of powerful engines. Lights appeared, like the blazing eyes of a dragon swooping down to devour its prey.
He ran out into the road with a shout.
It was an error, that shout. He had intended it for an inarticulate farewell to his picture, to Jeanne, to life. It was excusable to the driver of the motor that he misinterpreted it. It seemed to him a cry of warning. There was a great jarring of brakes, a scuttering of locked wheels on the dry road, and the car came to a standstill a full yard from where he stood.
'What the deuce—' said a cool voice from behind the lights.
Paul struck his chest and folded his arms.
'I am here,' he cried. 'Destroy me!'
'Let George do it,' said the voice, in a marked American accent. 'I never murder on a Friday; it's unlucky. If it's not a rude question, which asylum are you from? Halloa!'
The exclamation was one of surprise, for Paul's nerves had finally given way, and he was now in a heap on the road, sobbing.
The man climbed down and came into the light. He was a tall young man with a pleasant, clean-cut face. He stopped and shook Paul.
'Quit that,' he said. 'Maybe it's not true. And if it is, there's always hope. Cut it out. What's the matter? All in?'
Paul sat up, gulping convulsively. He was thoroughly unstrung. The cold, desperate mood had passed. In its place came the old feeling of desolation. He was a child, aching for sympathy. He wanted to tell his troubles. Punctuating his narrative with many gestures and an occasional gulp, he proceeded to do so. The American listened attentively.
'So you can't sell your picture, and you've lost your job, and your girl has shaken you?' he said. 'Pretty bad, but still you've no call to go mingling with automobile wheels. You come along with me to my hotel, and tomorrow we'll see if we can't fix up something.'
There was breakfast at the hotel next morning, a breakfast to put heart into a man. During the meal a messenger dispatched in a cab to Paul's lodgings returned with the canvas. A deferential waiter informed the American that it had been taken with every possible care to his suite.
'Good,' said the young man. 'If you're through, we'll go and have a look at it.'
They went upstairs. There was the picture resting against a chair.
'Why, I call that fine,' said the young man. 'It's a cracker jack.'
Paul's heart gave a sudden leap. Could it be that here was the wealthy connoisseur? He was wealthy, for he drove an automobile and lived in an expensive hotel. He was a connoisseur, for he had said that the picture was a crackerjack.
'Monsieur is kind,' murmured Paul.
'It's a bear-cat,' said the young man, admiringly.
'Monsieur is flattering,' said Paul, dimly perceiving a compliment.
'I've been looking for a picture like that,' said the young man, 'for months.'
Paul's eyes rolled heavenwards.
'If you'll make a few alterations, I'll buy it and ask for more.'
'Alterations, monsieur?'
'One or two small ones.' He pointed to the stooping figure of the shepherd. 'Now, you see this prominent citizen. What's he doing!'
'He is stooping,' said Paul, fervently, 'to bestow upon his loved one a kiss. And she, sleeping, all unconscious, dreaming of him—'
'Never mind about her. Fix your mind on him. Willie is the "star" in this show. You have summed him up accurately. He is stooping. Stooping good. Now, if that fellow was wearing braces and stooped like that, you'd say he'd burst those braces, wouldn't you?'
With a somewhat dazed air Paul said that he thought he would. Till now he had not looked at the figure from just that view-point.
'You'd say he'd bust them?'
'Assuredly, monsieur.'
'No!' said the young man, solemnly, tapping him earnestly on the chest. 'That's where you're wrong. Not if they were Galloway's Tried and Proven. Galloway's Tried and Proven will stand any old strain you care to put on them. See small bills. Wear Galloway's Tried and Proven, and fate cannot touch you. You can take it from me. I'm the company's general manager.'
'Indeed, monsieur!'
'And I'll make a proposition to you. Cut out that mossy bank, and make the girl lying in a hammock. Put Willie in shirt-sleeves instead of a bath-robe, and fix him up with a pair of the Tried and Proven, and I'll give you three thousand dollars for that picture and a retaining fee of four thousand a year to work for us and nobody else for any number of years you care to mention. You've got the goods. You've got just the touch. That happy look on Willie's face, for instance. You can see in a minute why he's so happy. It's because he's wearing the Tried and Proven, and he knows that however far he stoops they won't break. Is that a deal?'