With the return of his boon companions to their old haunts, Noll was out and away early and late again. The first day of October had seen him taken off by Horace Malahide, with a set of drawings to Gérôme--had seen him receive the letter which should admit him a _nouveau_ to the great man’s _atelier_ in the State schools of the Beaux Arts. He had only to wait until the fifteenth to be initiated into the riotous mysteries of the French studio where Latour and Malahide were not the least boisterous of its boisterous pupils. As Noll came back, triumphant from his interview with the celebrated painter, Horace and Latour singing him in, he flung down his drawings upon the floor. Betty, glowing with delight at his delight, took them up one by one, and was somewhat surprised at their technical accomplishment. She had feared his days with Horace Malahide had been but idle days. Yet, even with this evidence before her eyes, she was not without shrinkings, for she knew the feverish energy which Noll could put into any effort to gain what he wanted for the time being--and she knew he had greatly fretted to get into Gérôme’s _atelier_. Beyond? She knew his Beyond had been of the vaguest. The jovial comradeship of the schools had roused him to effort. And even whilst she went up to him and embraced him, she wondered whether his eyes had been fixed upon any Beyond. She glowed to the pressure of his jovial embrace; she felt the delight of his achievement--yet her clear-seeing eyes were afraid for him. He was so easily successful. They all sallied out together with Betty, roused the Five Foolish Virgins (Moll Davenant’s door refused to open); and there was cackle and riot as they took a restaurant by storm. The crude wine had never seemed so mellow, the mystic dishes had not tasted finer at an emperor’s banquet--ah! the mysteries of the cooking-pot never yield such savour as to the palate of youth. Early on the morning of the fifteenth, a fresh October day, Horace Malahide and Gaston Latour came for Noll; and he, in mighty high spirits, an easel over his shoulder and a couple of rush-bottomed stools dangling therefrom, hugged Betty and sallied out with the others to face the wild horseplay that greets the coming of the _nouveau_ on the opening day in the art schools of Paris. Betty, leaning over the balcony, kissed her hand to him as the three, looking up, waved their hats, and departed out of the court. She smiled as she thought of the devilments that would ensue; and she smiled still more at the thought of Noll, returned from it all, helping her on with her jacket and hurrying her off to dinner, telling her of the amusing details in his rollicking humorous way, with his quaint eye for the quips and oddities of droll situations. But the day was heavy upon her--she could not bend her will to her work--the hours passed with sullen tread....