“I’m afraid they find it hard to make both ends meet, as it is,” he explained. “Yet I suppose they all flourish as usual—playing tennis and golf and selling at bazaars and quarrelling over curates?” “They all seem pretty happy,” said Martin, not overpleased at his companion’s airy treatment of her family. He, himself, the loneliest of men, had found grateful warmth among the noisy, good-hearted crew of girls. It hurt him to hear them contemptuously spoken of. “It was the first time you went down since——!” she paused. “Since my mother died? Yes. She died early in May, you know.” “It must be a terrible loss to you,” said Corinna in a softened voice. He nodded and looked out of window at the houses opposite. That was why he was in Paris. For the last ten years, ever since his father’s death had hurried him away from Cambridge, after a term or two, into the wide world of struggle for a living, he had spent all his days of freedom in the little Kentish town. And these days were few. There were no long luxurious vacations at Margett’s Universal College, such as there are at ordinary colleges and schools. The grind went on all the year round, and the staff had but scanty holidays. Such as they were he passed them at his mother’s tiny villa. His father had given up the chaplaincy in Switzerland, where he had married and where Martin had been born, to become Vicar of Wendlebury, and Mr. Hastings was his successor. Mrs. Overshaw, with her phlegmatic temperament, had taken root in Wendlebury and there Martin had visited her and there he had been received into the intimacy of the Hastings family and there she had died; and now that the little villa was empty and Martin had no place outside London to lay his leisured head, he had satisfied the dream of his life and come to Paris. But even in this satisfaction there was pain. What was Paris compared with the kind touch of that vanished hand? He sighed. He was a simple soul in spite of his thirty years. The waiter roused him from his sad reflections by bringing the soup and a bottle of thin red wine. Conscious of food and drink and a female companion of prepossessing exterior, Martin’s face brightened. “It’s so jolly of them in Paris to throw in wine like this,” said he. “I only hope you can drink the stuff,” remarked Corinna. “We call it _tord-boyau_.” “It’s a rare treat,” said Martin. “I can’t afford wine in England, and the soup is delicious. Somehow no English landlady ever thinks of making it.” “England is a beast of a place,” said Corinna. “Yet in your letter you called Paris a God-forsaken city.” “So it is in August. The schools are closed. Not a studio is open. Every single student has cleared out and there’s nothing in the world to do.” “I’ve found heaps to do,” said Martin. “The Pantheon and Notre Dame and the Folies Bergère,” said Corinna. “There’s also the Eiffel Tower. Imagine a three years’ art-student finding fun on the Eiffel Tower!”