That French hurdy-gurdy was playing "Annie Laurie," and, since the lonely artist's heart ached to hear the old, familiar melody, when the bearded grinder looked aloft, Cartaret drew a coin from his pocket. Anxious to pay for his pain, as the human kind always is, he tossed his last franc to that vendor of emotions in the twilit street. He was drunk at last with the wine that his own misery distilled. He abandoned himself to the admission that he was in love: he abandoned himself to his dream of the Lady of the Rose. Seraphin, in a wonderful new suit of clothes, found him thus the next morning--it was a Friday--and found him accordingly resentful of intrusion. Cartaret was sitting before an empty easel, his hands clasped in his lap, his eyes looking vacantly through the posts of the easel. "Good-day," said Seraphin. Cartaret said "Good-day" as if it were a form of insult. Seraphin's hands tugged at his two wisps of whisker. "You are not well, _hein_?" "I was never better in my life," snapped Cartaret, turning upon his friend a face that was peaked and drawn. The Frenchman came timidly nearer. "My friend," he said, "I have completed my _magnum opus_. It has not sold quite so well as I hoped, not of course one thousandth of its value. That is this Spanish cow of a world. But I have three hundred francs. If you need----" "Go away," said Cartaret, looking at his empty easel. "Can't you see I'm trying to begin work?" Seraphin himself had suffered. His dignity was not offended: he kept it for only his creditors and other foes. He guessed that Cartaret was at last penniless, and he guessed rightly. "Come, my friend," he began; "none shall know. Will you not be so kind as to let me----" Cartaret got up and, for all his weakness, gripped the Frenchman's hand until Dieudonné nearly screamed. "I'm a beast, Seraphin!" said Cartaret. "I'm a beast to treat a friendly offer this way. Forgive me. It's just that I feel a bit rocky this morning. I drank too much champagne last night. I do thank you, Seraphin. You're a good fellow, the best of the lot, and a sight better than I am. But I'm not hard up; really I'm not. I'm poor, but I'm not a sou poorer than I was this time last year." It was a magnificent lie. Seraphin could only shrug, pretend to believe it, and go away. Cartaret scarcely heeded the departure. He had relapsed into his day-dream. He took from against the wall the two portraits that he had painted of the Lady of the Rose and hung them, now here, now there, trying them in various lights. There were at least ten more sketches of her by this time, and these, too, he hung in first one light and then another. He studied them and tried to be critical, and forgot to be.