When Clifford finished, he finished in a glow of excitement, but Rue
Barrée's response was long in coming and his ardour cooled while the
situation slowly assumed its just proportions. Then regret began to creep
in, but he put that aside and broke out again in protestations. At the
first word Rue Barrée checked him. "I thank you," she said, speaking very gravely. "No man has ever before
offered me marriage." She turned and looked out over the city. After a
while she spoke again. "You offer me a great deal. I am alone, I have
nothing, I am nothing." She turned again and looked at Paris, brilliant,
fair, in the sunshine of a perfect day. He followed her eyes. "Oh," she murmured, "it is hard,--hard to work always--always alone with
never a friend you can have in honour, and the love that is offered means
the streets, the boulevard--when passion is dead. I know it,--_we_ know
it,--we others who have nothing,--have no one, and who give ourselves,
unquestioning--when we love,--yes, unquestioning--heart and soul, knowing
the end." She touched the rose at her breast. For a moment she seemed to forget him,
then quietly--"I thank you, I am very grateful." She opened the book and,
plucking a petal from the rose, dropped it between the leaves. Then
looking up she said gently, "I cannot accept." V

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 Barrée acknowledged his solemn salutes. Forty times a day he blessed
Rue Barrée for her refusal, and thanked his lucky stars, and at the same
time, oh, wondrous heart of ours!--he suffered the tortures of the
blighted. Elliott was annoyed, partly by Clifford's reticence, partly by the
unexplainable thaw in the frigidity of Rue Barrée. At their frequent
encounters, when she, tripping along the rue de Seine, with music-roll and
big straw hat would pass Clifford and his familiars steering an easterly
course to the Café Vachette, and at the respectful uncovering of the band
would colour and smile at Clifford, Elliott's slumbering suspicions awoke. But he never found out anything, and finally gave it up as beyond his
comprehension, merely qualifying Clifford as an idiot and reserving his
opinion of Rue Barrée. And all this time Selby was jealous. 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 Barrée and the mowers calling to each other across
the meadow ended in a quavering "Rue Bar-rée-e!" That day spent in the
country made him angry for a week, and he worked sulkily at Julian's, all
the time tormented by a desire to know where Clifford was and what he
might be doing. This culminated in an erratic stroll on Sunday which ended
at the flower-market on the Pont au Change, began again, was gloomily
extended to the morgue, and again ended at the marble bridge. It would
never do, and Selby felt it, so he went to see Clifford, who was
convalescing on mint juleps in his garden. They sat down together and discussed morals and human happiness, and each
found the other most entertaining, only Selby failed to pump Clifford, to
the other's unfeigned amusement. But the juleps spread balm on the sting
of jealousy, and trickled hope to the blighted, and when Selby said he
must go, Clifford went too, and when Selby, not to be outdone, insisted on
accompanying Clifford back to his door, Clifford determined to see Selby
back half way, and then finding it hard to part, they decided to dine
together and "flit." To flit, a verb applied to Clifford's nocturnal
prowls, expressed, perhaps, as well as anything, the gaiety proposed. Dinner was ordered at Mignon's, and while Selby interviewed the chef,
Clifford kept a fatherly eye on the butler. The dinner was a success, or
was of the sort generally termed a success. Toward the dessert Selby heard
some one say as at a great distance, "Kid Selby, drunk as a lord." A group of men passed near them; it seemed to him that he shook hands and
laughed a great deal, and that everybody was very witty. There was
Clifford opposite swearing undying confidence in his chum Selby, and there
seemed to be others there, either seated beside them or continually
passing with the swish of skirts on the polished floor. The perfume of
roses, the rustle of fans, the touch of rounded arms and the laughter grew
vaguer and vaguer. The room seemed enveloped in mist. Then, all in a
moment each object stood out painfully distinct, only forms and visages
were distorted and voices piercing. He drew himself up, calm, grave, for
the moment master of himself, but very drunk. He knew he was drunk, and
was as guarded and alert, as keenly suspicious of himself as he would have
been of a thief at his elbow. His self-command enabled Clifford to hold
his head safely under some running water, and repair to the street
considerably the worse for wear, but never suspecting that his companion
was drunk. For a time he kept his self-command. His face was only a bit
paler, a bit tighter than usual; he was only a trifle slower and more
fastidious in his speech. It was midnight when he left Clifford peacefully
slumbering in somebody's arm-chair, with a long suede glove dangling in
his hand and a plumy boa twisted about his neck to protect his throat from
drafts. He walked through the hall and down the stairs, and found himself
on the sidewalk in a quarter he did not know. Mechanically he looked up at
the name of the street. The name was not familiar. He turned and steered
his course toward some lights clustered at the end of the street. They
proved farther away than he had anticipated, and after a long quest he
came to the conclusion that his eyes had been mysteriously removed from
their proper places and had been reset on either side of his head like
those of a bird. It grieved him to think of the inconvenience this
transformation might occasion him, and he attempted to cock up his head,
hen-like, to test the mobility of his neck. Then an immense despair stole
over him,--tears gathered in the tear-ducts, his heart melted, and he
collided with a tree. This shocked him into comprehension; he stifled the
violent tenderness in his breast, picked up his hat and moved on more
briskly. His mouth was white and drawn, his teeth tightly clinched. He
held his course pretty well and strayed but little, and after an
apparently interminable length of time found himself passing a line of
cabs. The brilliant lamps, red, yellow, and green annoyed him, and he felt
it might be pleasant to demolish them with his cane, but mastering this
impulse he passed on.