by his share in the Théâtre Michel entertainment, either, although his share had been above reproach and had soothed savage and gentle alike. The Braque studio, which, alas, Braque is soon to quit, is charming. It is over the hill in Montmartre, but still so high that the view from the roof terrasse on the seventh floor would do admirably for Louise's Pa, in the opera, to curse.
I spied by chance yesterday in the Kraushaar window something that gave me great pleasure—a small, gilt-bronze statuette of a costumed female figure by Gaston Lachaise. The pleasure was the more in that I was meeting an old friend—I had seen the figure in the clay a year or two ago and had often wondered what had become of it. There is perhaps no harm in telling that Mrs Bertram Hartman posed for it though Lachaise in the end carried it beyond the portrait stage in which I first saw it. I had gone to call upon the Lachaises late one Sunday afternoon and blundered upon the pose which had evidently been undertaken impromptu. Lachaise and Mrs Hartman and young Mr Nagel, who was there, assured me that I was not interrupting and that it really was too dark for further work and that if I would but enter I should have a cup of tea. Now the Lachaise establishment is famous for the excellence of the tea it dispenses, but it is, naturally, Madame Lachaise who looks after this end. She had gone calling somewhere and Lachaise explained that his own technique in tea-making was somewhat wobbly, but, with a look of desperate resolve, he would do his best. He did do his best and his best was not bad and Madame Lachaise, who came in just as our festivities got under way, expressed no special disapproval though insisting with perhaps a shade of firmness that all present should come in again the following Sunday for another cup of tea. The second Sunday's tea was, of course, superb, but—so perverse is human nature—both teas registered with equal firmness upon my brain and I shall never see the charming and poetic little bronze without thinking of two pleasant Sunday afternoons.
Archipenko, the extraordinary Russian sculptor, has come to town, is already ensconced in a studio, and intends to seek pupils. Of this, undoubtedly, there will be more anon.
