42 STRAY -AW AYS 



cowslips in which she may be seen taking her Sabbath 

 airing. 



Having, hke the locust, no king, she goes forth by 

 companies, and settles down upon the Parisian Sunday 

 in swarms that devastate the cremeries and suck the 

 last sou of satisfaction out of concert or picture- 

 gallery. Her male fellows merge more or less in the 

 general ruck of life, and pass unconspicuous enough 

 among the crowds of dirty youths who form the under- 

 growth of the streets of the Rive Gauche ; but the 

 Anglo-Saxon female, whether English or American, 

 never assimilates with the Frenchwoman, and is as 

 unmistakable as she is ubiquitous. 



It is a bright April Sunday, and at the door of the 

 Chatelet Theatre is a queue of people, pushing as only 

 fat Frenchwomen can push, planting their pointed 

 heels upon the instep of the obnoxious with smiling 

 precision ; and in the midst of them is the art student, 

 fighting her way in and up the interminable stairs 

 with scarcely inferior skill. It is a great occasion — 

 a Grieg concert, presided over by the Master himself — 

 and having paid four francs for her seat, she means to 

 have it. Her strength is as the strength of ten, she 

 is hampered by no regard for her personal dignity, 

 and the Chatelet stairs feel themselves scorned and 

 worsted as she speeds up them. She can even bring 

 some sense of failure home to the nimble harpies, 

 who, with dyed locks tied up with pink ribbons, and 

 hearts seared with the habit of plunder, dominate the 

 corridors of French theatres. She declines their 

 proffered footstools, she sits upon her coat, and her 

 hat, too, if necessary (we have even known a member 

 of the community who reserved for the theatre a 

 specially high-qrowned hat with which to increase 

 the height of her seat). They understand her French 

 even less than she understands theirs, but she makes 



