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At first he refused to acknowledge it to himself, and cut the studio for a day in the country, but the woods and fields of course aggravated his case, and the brooks babbled of Rue Barree and the mowers calling to each other across the meadow ended in a quavering "Rue Bar-ree-e!"
"Rue Barree!" "What!" cried Selby, bewildered. The only answer was a vague gesture from Clifford. Two hours later, during dinner, Clifford turned to Selby and said, "You want to ask me something; I can tell by the way you fidget about." "Yes, I do," he said, innocently enough; "it's about that girl. Who is she?" In Rowden's smile there was pity, in Elliott's bitterness.
It took Clifford a month to entirely recover, although at the end of the first week he was pronounced convalescent by Elliott, who was an authority, and his convalescence was aided by the cordiality with which Rue Barree acknowledged his solemn salutes.
Sunday morning, apropos of nothing at all, he thought of Rue Barree, and ten seconds afterwards he saw her. It was at the flower-market on the marble bridge. She was examining a pot of pansies. The gardener had evidently thrown heart and soul into the transaction, but Rue Barree shook her head.
This seems to have gone a little further than the rest. Thank your stars, young man, that my head is level enough for us both. Still, in this case, I have no fear. Rue Barree sat on your aspirations in a manner unmistakably final."
At the entrance of the street a sign is put up: "RUE BARRÉE." The front walls of buildings torn away, winding staircases are seen climbing up with all their burden of years upon them and all their secret weaknesses exposed.
Then he raised his voice in a plaintive howl, "Are you there, Colette, while I'm kicking my heels on these tiles?" "Clifford is capable of anything," said Rowden; "his nature is soured since Rue Barree sat on him." Elliott raised his voice: "I say, you fellows, we saw some flowers carried into Rue Barree's house at noon." "Posies and roses," specified Rowden.
For an instant Rue Barree frowned, then she looked curiously at Clifford, then when she saw the resemblance between his bows and the bobbing pigeons, in spite of herself, her lips parted in the most bewitching laugh. Was this Rue Barree?
Rue Barree shook her head. The gardener smiled. She evidently did not want the pansies. She had bought many pots of pansies there, two or three every spring, and never argued. What did she want then? The pansies were evidently a feeler toward a more important transaction. The gardener rubbed his hands and gazed about him.
Her residence is in a small and humble street which is kept in a perpetual process of repair by the city authorities, and from the black letters painted on the barrier which defends the street from traffic, she has taken the name by which we know her, Rue Barree. Mr. Rowden, in his imperfect knowledge of the French tongue, called our attention to it as Roo Barry " "I didn't," said Rowden hotly.
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