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She held up her hand. “No, no. I’ve no time to go to exhibitions. Is he a man of any importance?”

“Certainly. He is one of the first men among the moderns. That is to say, among the very moderns. He is always coming up with something different. He often exhibits in Paris, you must have seen–“

“No, I tell you I don’t go to exhibitions. Has he had great success? That is what I want to know.”

M. Jules pulled at his short grey moustache. “But, Madame, there are many kinds of success,” he began cautiously.

Madame gave a dry laugh. “Yes, so he used to say. We once quarrelled on that issue. And how would you define his particular kind?”

M. Jules grew thoughtful. “He is a great name with all the young men, and he is decidedly an influence in art. But one can’t definitely place a man who is original, erratic, and who is changing all the time.”

She cut him short. “Is he much talked about at home? In Paris, I mean? Thanks. That’s all I want to know.” She rose and began buttoning her coat. “One doesn’t like to have been an utter fool, even at twenty.”

“Mais, non!” M. Jules handed her her muff with a quick, sympathetic glance. He followed her out through the carpeted show-room, now closed to the public and draped in cheesecloth, and put her into her car with words appreciative of the honour she had done him in calling.

Leaning back in the cushions, Eden Bower closed her eyes, and her face, as the street lamps flashed their ugly orange light upon it, became hard and settled, like a plaster cast; so a sail, that has been filled by a strong breeze, behaves when the wind suddenly dies. Tomorrow night the wind would blow again, and this mask would be the golden face of Aphrodite. But a “big” career takes its toll, even with the best of luck.