She indicated a way through the back salon that had once been the street frontage. Beyond yawned a cavernous kitchen, the blacker because of its opening on to a dazzlingly green back yard. Between the two rose a staircase, which a strapping youth was polishing with a mop on his foot. I mounted and gained the _deuxième_. Then, outside the closed door, I stopped with a thumping heart. But it was no good hesitating. I pulled myself together and knocked. "_----trez!_" called a clear voice. I thanked God, pushed and entered. His head was bent over his colour-box. On a piece of paper he appeared to be making a list of the colours to be replenished. He looked smilingly up, and our eyes met. Clear eyes, grave sweet mouth, undoubting smile---- And unchanged. The night had passed, and nothing perceptible had happened. I crossed to the window. Now that all was well, I dare to admit to myself that I had been prepared to find him--dead. If he was right in fixing his climacteric at sixteen he might well have been dead. But there he was, bending over his colour-box and murmuring "Cobalt--I seem to eat cobalt--raw sienna--orange vermilion----" Presently I spoke, still from the window. "Well, I don't know anything about downstairs, but you've a gorgeous view up here." "Isn't it?" he said. "Grows on you. At first I thought it rather scrappy, a little bit of everything, and I wish they'd put a bomb under that silly château-place; but it grows on you. Inland's the country though. Orange vermilion, pale cadmium, and a double go of cobalt----" I looked round his room. The smell of oil-colours clung about it, but it was exquisitely tidy and simple. Its walls were covered with a yellowish striped paper, its ceiling beams were moulded, its herring-boned parquet floor shone. A single mat lay by the side of his ornate wooden bedstead, which, with the little night cupboard by it, a small table at the window, and a single upholstered chair, was the only furniture in the room. The door-knob was of glass, and the lace curtains had been draped back over the open leaves of the window. From a flimsy little hat-rack hung his two haversacks. His canvases apparently were in the cupboard that was sunk into the wall. "Well," he said, putting his list of colours into his pocket, "it seems rather a rum idea bringing you right out here when I've got to go into Dinard myself. Can I have the money, George?" I counted it out. "And oh, by the way--I know you won't mind--but if you'd talk French when there's anybody about--it makes things a bit simpler----"