<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
<br/>
<div class="first">COMRADESHIP in its broader sense is Bohemianism
at its best; Bohemianism, not as it is imagined by the
<i>dilettante</i>—a thing of picturesque penury and exotic
vice—but a spontaneous intermingling of personalities, an
understanding, a fraternity as purely a gift of the gods as love or
beauty.</div>
<p>It is true that the sense of regained happiness beat strong in
the mind of Max when he followed Jacqueline into her unpicturesque
living-room with its sparse, cheap furniture, its piano and its gas
stove, and that the happiness budded and blossomed like a flower in
the sun at the one swift glance exchanged with Blake; but even had
these factors not been present, he must still have been sensible of
the pretty touch of hospitality patent in the girl's manner the
moment she crossed her own threshold, conscious of the friendly
smile of M. Lucien Cartel, typical artist, typical Frenchman of the
southern provinces—short, swarthy, alive from his coarse
black hair to the square tips of his fingers. It was in the
air—the sense of good-will—the desire for conviviality;
and in the first greeting, the first hand-shake, the relations of
the party were established.</p>
<p>But the true note of this Bohemianism is not so much spontaneous
friendship as a spontaneous capacity for the interchange of
thought—that instant opening of mind to mind, when place
becomes of slight, and time of no importance.</p>
<p>Such an atmosphere was created by M. Lucien Cartel in his poor
Montmartre <i>appartement</i>, and under its spell Max and Blake
fell as surely, as luxuriously as they might have fallen under the
spell of a summer day. It was not that M. Cartel was brilliant; his
only capacity for brilliance lay in his strong, square hands; but
he was a good fellow and possessed of a philosophy that at once
challenged and interested. For Church and State he had a wide
contempt, a scoffing raillery, a candid blasphemy that outraged
orthodoxy: for humanity and for his art he owned an enthusiasm
touching on the sublime. Upon every subject—the meanest and
the most profound—he held an opinion and aired it with superb
frankness and incredible fluency. So it was that, when the
<i>poulet bonne femme</i> had been picked to the bones and
Jacqueline had retired to some sanctum whence the clatter of plates
and the sound of running water told of domestic duties, the three
pushed their chairs back from the table and fell to talk.</p>
<p>Precisely how they talked, precisely what they talked of in that
pleasant period subsequent to the meal is not to be related. They
thrashed the paths of morality, science, religion until their
contending voices filled the room and the tobacco smoke hung in
clouds about them. They talked until the last drop of Jacqueline's
coffee had been drained; they talked until Jacqueline herself came
silently back into the room and seated herself by Cartel's side,
slipping her hand into his with artless spontaneity.</p>
<p>Morality, science, religion, and then, in natural sequence,
art—music! The brain of M. Cartel tingled, his fingers
twitched as the rival merits of composers—the varying schools
of thought—were touched upon, warmed to, or torn by
contending opinions. One end only was conceivable to that last
discussion. The moment arrived when the brain of M. Cartel cried
vehemently for expression, when his hand, imprisoned in the small
fingers of Jacqueline, was no longer to be restrained, when he
sprang from his chair and rushed to the piano, his coarse black
hair an untidy mat, his ugly face alight with God's gift of
inspiration.</p>
<p>'What had he said? Was this, then, not
magnificent—wonderful?'</p>
<p>And, seating himself, he unloosed into the common room a beauty
of sound more adorning than the rarest devices of the decorator's
art—a mesh of delicate harmonies that snared the imaginations
of his three listeners and sent them winging to the very borders of
their varying realms.</p>
<p>M. Lucien Cartel in every-day life and to the casual observer
was a good fellow with a fund of enthusiasm and a ready tongue; M.
Lucien Cartel to the woman he loved and in the enchanted world of
his art was a mortal imbued warmly and surely with a spark of the
divinity he derided. There is no niggardliness in Bohemia: it made
him as happy to give of his music as it made his listeners to
receive, with the consequence that time was dethroned and that four
people sat entranced, claiming nothing from the world outside, more
than content in the knowledge that the world had no eyes for the
doings of a little room on the heights of Montmartre.</p>
<p>From opera to opera M. Cartel wandered, now humming a passage
under his breath in accompaniment to his playing, again raising his
soft, southern voice in an abandonment of enthusiasm.</p>
<p>It was following close upon some such enthusiastic moment that
Max rose, crossed the room, and taking a violin and bow from where
they lay upon a wooden bench against the wall, carried them
silently to the piano.</p>
<p>As silently M. Cartel received them and, lifting the violin,
tucked it under his chin and raised the bow.</p>
<p>There is no need to detail the magic that followed upon that
simple action. The world—even his own Paris—has never
heard of M. Lucien Cartel, and cares not to know of the pieces that
he played, the degree of his technique, the truth of his
interpretation; but when at last the hand that held the violin
dropped to his side and, lifting his right arm, he wiped his damp
forehead with the sleeve of his coat, the faces of his audience
were pale as the faces of those who have looked upon hidden places,
and in the eyes of the little Jacqueline there were tears.</p>
<p>A moment of silence; then M. Cartel laid down his violin and
laughed. The laugh broke the spell: Jacqueline, with a childish cry
of excitement, flew across the room and, throwing her arms about
his neck, kissed him with unashamed fervor; Blake and Max pressed
round the piano, and in an instant the room was humming again to
the sound of voices, and some one made the astounding discovery
that it was five o'clock.</p>
<p>This was Blake's opportunity—the opportunity loved beyond
all others of the Irishman, when it is permissible to offer
hospitality. The idea came to him as an inspiration, and was seized
upon as such. Eager as a boy, he laid one hand on Max's shoulder,
the other on that of M. Cartel.</p>
<p>'He had a suggestion to make! One that admitted of no refusal!
M. Cartel had entertained them regally; he must suffer them to make
some poor return. There was a certain little <i>café</i>
where the <i>chef</i> knew his business and the wine really was
wine—' He looked from one face to another for approval, and
perhaps it was but natural that his eyes should rest last and
longest on the face of Max.</p>
<p>So it was arranged. A dinner is a question readily dealt with in
the quarter of Montmartre, and soon the four—laughing,
talking, arguing—were hurrying down the many steps of the
Escalier de Sainte-Marie, bent upon the enjoyment of the hour.</p>
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