A great expanse of twelve to fifteen hours lay in front of you. It was not
uncomfortably and unchangeably cut into fixed portions by the incidence of
lunch and dinner. You ate when you felt inclined to eat, and nearly always
at restaurants where you met your acquaintances. Meals were the least
important happenings of the day. You had no reliable watch, and you needed
none, for you had no fixed programme. You worked till you had had enough of
work. You went forth into the world exactly when the idea took you. If you
were bored, you found a friend and went to sit in a café. You were ready
for anything. The word "rule" had been omitted from your dictionary. You
retired to bed when the still small voice within murmured that there was
naught else to do. You woke up in the morning amid cups and saucers,
lingerie, masterpieces, and boots. And the next day was the same. All the
days were the same. Weeks passed with inexpressible rapidity, and all
things beyond the Quarter had the quality of vague murmurings and noises
behind the scenes.

May had come. Audrey and Miss Ingate had lived in the studio for six months
before they realised that they had settled down there and that habits had
been formed. Still, they had accomplished something. Miss Ingate had gone
back into oils and was attending life classes, and Audrey, by terrible
application and by sitting daily at the feet of an oldish lady in black,
and by refusing to speak English between breakfast and dinner, had acquired
a good accent and much fluency in the French tongue. Now, when she spoke
French, she thought in French, and she was extremely proud of the
achievement. Also she was acquainted with the names and styles of all known
modern painters from pointillistes to cubistes, and, indeed, with the
latest eccentricities in all the arts. She could tell who was immortal, and
she was fully aware that there was no real painting in England. In brief,
she was perhaps more Parisian even than she had hoped. She had absorbed