A Spanish
student, in a velvet coat and with long black hair, insisted upon
charcoaling mustachios and imperial upon his host's countenance, in
honor of his countryman who had distinguished himself as a patron of
art. Later, a laughing girl whose blue-black hair was banded
Madonna-wise around a head considerably otherwise, washed it off
with a table napkin dipped in wine. She sat on his knee to perform
the operation, scanned his clean face with satisfaction, and taking
him by the ears as by handles, kissed him gaily. Then she went back
to her own _cher ami_, who wasn't in the least disturbed.
"It is like kissing thy maiden aunt, Jacques," she told him. "Now,
with thee--" They looked at each other eloquently, and Peter
Champneys, whose eyes had followed the girl, smiled crookedly. An
unaccountable gloom descended upon him. All these lusty young men
shouting and laughing around him, all these handsome, ardent young
women, snatched what joy from life they could; they lived their
hour, knowing how brief that hour must be.
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