François shrugged his shoulders, and continued to paint. “Where’s her hotel? Oh, the Impérial. She’s got that out of Baedeker.” He laughed. “Come now, François. Own that sweet Anne Page in Paris will be rather nice!” “You’d better ask her to tea here to-morrow. Your place is even more of a pig-sty than mine. We shall see Dacier and Thouret at the _Lilas_ this evening. We can ask them then.” “All right. But I’m not going to have you about all the time mind!” “You won’t,” returned his friend briefly. “I can’t stand fools.” René’s face darkened for a moment, but the retort died on his lips. “Look here, old man,” he urged. “Don’t be a beast. I’m serious.” “_Tant pis_,” was François’ implacable reply. But when next day Anne was actually in his studio, and he heard her voice, and saw her smile, and listened to the laughing clamour around her, as she sat in the only armchair that was not broken, and drank execrable tea out of a cup which did not match its saucer, it was difficult even for Fontenelle to be anything but gay and pleased. With an odd mixture of sensations, he noticed how fair her skin looked against her black dress. The fur she wore on her shoulders was also exceedingly becoming. François, who as a painter of many women’s portraits knew something of the cost of feminine apparel, looked at it with a certain surprise. Either the old lady had been fairly generous, or Anne in her one day’s shopping, had been disgracefully extravagant. In either case the result was admirable. He emerged from his reflections to find a furious discussion raging as to which restaurant she should be taken to dine. “_Café de la Régence_,” said François authoritatively, “and afterwards we’ll drive back to the _Lilas_.” * * * * * It was several days before Anne found herself alone with René. He came to her hotel one morning, and carried her off to lunch with him at a little restaurant in the neighbourhood of his studio. “You have such a devoted body-guard, that I never get a word with you,” he complained. “And I want you to see my pictures. We must get in before the light goes. It gets so confoundedly dark in the afternoons now.” Later on in the great gaunt studio at the top of the pile of buildings in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs, Anne stood before some of the pictures which in after years were to fetch great sums from art collectors, which were to be discussed by connoisseurs, to be execrated, loved, praised, condemned, admired. She did not see them. For her at the moment, they were non-existent. One thing only was in her mind; one idea, and that in the form of a question. How should she accomplish what she had come to do? This was the first time René had deliberately sought her alone, and in the circumstance, without malice, she divined the influence of François Fontenelle.