I ask it as a favour; we must not part so soon after
having met so strangely."
"Oh, come, you know," said Stubbs, "I can't let a fellow like you -
" And there he paused, feeling somehow or other on a wrong tack.
"I do not wish to employ menaces," continued Leon, with a smile;
"but if you refuse, indeed I shall not take it kindly."
"I don't quite see my way out of it," thought the undergraduate;
and then, after a pause, he said, aloud and ungraciously enough,
"All right. I - I'm very much obliged, of course." And he
proceeded to follow them, thinking in his heart, "But it's bad
form, all the same, to force an obligation on a fellow."
CHAPTER V
Leon strode ahead as if he knew exactly where he was going; the
sobs of Madame were still faintly audible, and no one uttered a
word. A dog barked furiously in a courtyard as they went by; then
the church clock struck two, and many domestic clocks followed or
preceded it in piping tones. And just then Berthelini spied a
light. It burned in a small house on the outskirts of the town,
and thither the party now directed their steps.
"It is always a chance," said Leon.
The house in question stood back from the street behind an open
space, part garden, part turnip-field; and several outhouses stood
forward from either wing at right angles to the front. One of
these had recently undergone some change. An enormous window,
looking towards the north, had been effected in the wall and roof,
and Leon began to hope it was a studio.
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