sketches at his side. "Perhaps they may interest you more than the
copy, which I have attempted only to get at this man's method. They are
sketches I have done here."
There was a buttress of Notre Dame, a black arch of the Pont Neuf, part
of an old courtyard in the Faubourg St. Germain,--all very fresh and
striking. Yet, with the recollection of his poverty in her mind, she
could not help saying, "But if you copied one of those masterpieces, you
know you could sell it. There is always a demand for that work."
"Yes," he replied, "but these help me in my line, which is architectural
study. It is, perhaps, not very ambitious," he added thoughtfully,
"but," brightening up again, "I sell these sketches, too. They are quite
marketable, I assure you."
Helen's heart sank again. She remembered now to have seen such
sketches--she doubted not they were his--in the cheap shops in the
Rue Poissoniere, ticketed at a few francs each. She was silent as he
patiently turned them over. Suddenly she uttered a little cry.
He had just uncovered a little sketch of what seemed at first sight only
a confused cluster of roof tops, dormer windows, and chimneys, level
with the sky-line. But it was bathed in the white sunshine of Paris,
against the blue sky she knew so well. There, too, were the gritty
crystals and rust of the tiles, the red, brown, and greenish mosses
of the gutters, and lower down the more vivid colors of geraniums and
pansies in flower-pots under the white dimity curtains which hid the
small panes of garret windows; yet every sordid detail touched and
transfigured with the poetry and romance of youth and genius.
"You have seen this?" she said.
"Yes; it is a study from my window. One must go high for such effects.
You would be surprised if you could see how different the air and
sunshine"--
"No," she interrupted gently, "I HAVE seen it."
"You?" he repeated, gazing at her curiously.
Helen ran the point of her slim finger along the sketch until it
reached a tiny dormer window in the left-hand corner, half-hidden by an
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