picacious he suffered now from the least
insinuations as much as from direct attacks.

But never had any wound to his pride as an artist hurt him like this.
He remained gasping, and reread the article in order to grasp its every
meaning. He and his equals were thrown aside with outrageous disrespect;
and he arose murmuring those words, which remained on his lips: "The
old-fashioned art of Olivier Bertin."

Never had such sadness, such discouragement, such a sensation of having
reached the end of everything, the end of his mental and physical
being, thrown him into such desperate distress of soul. He sat until two
o'clock in his armchair, before the fireplace, his legs extended toward
the fire, not having strength to move, or to do anything. Then the need
of being consoled rose within him, the need to clasp devoted hands, to
see faithful eyes, to be pitied, succored, caressed with friendly words.
So he went, as usual, to the Countess.

When he entered Annette was alone in the drawing-room, standing with
her back toward him, hastily writing the address on a letter. On a table
beside her lay a copy of _Figaro_. Bertin saw the journal at the moment
that he saw the young girl and was bewildered, not daring to advance!
Oh, if she had read it! She turned, and in a preoccupied, hurried way,
her mind haunted with feminine cares, she said to him:

"Ah, good-morning, sir painter! You will excuse me if I leave you?
I have a dressmaker upstairs who claims me. You understand that a
dressmaker, at the time of a wedding, is very important. I will lend you
mamma, who is talking and arguing with my artist. If I need her I will
call her for a few minutes."

And she hastened away, running a little, to show how much she was
hurried.

This abrupt departure, without a word of affection, without a tender
look for him who loved her so much--so much!--quite upset him. His eyes
rested again on the _Figaro_, and he thought: "She has read it! They
laugh at me, they deny me. She no longer believes in me. I am nothing to
her any more."

He took two steps toward the journal, as one walks toward a man to
strike him. Then he said to himself: "Perhaps she has not read it, after
all. She is so preoccupied to-day. But someone will undoubtedly speak of
it before her, perhaps this evening, at dinner, and that will make her
curious to read it."

With a spontaneous, almost unthinking, movement he took the copy, closed
it, folded it, and slipped it in