jealous of painting, the
cruel mistress, exacting and repugnant, who seemed to drive her poor
baby mad. One of these days, master, the studio would catch on fire
together with all its pictures. She tried to draw him to her, to make
him sit on her lap, so that she might rock him like a child.

"Look here, Mariano, dear. Laugh for your Concha. Laugh, you big stupid!
Laugh, or I'll whip you."

He laughed, but it was forced. He tried to resist her fondling, tired of
those childish tricks which once were his delight. He remained
indifferent to those hands, those lips, to the warmth of that body which
rubbed against him without awakening the least desire. And he had loved
that woman! For her he had committed the terrible, irreparable crime
which would make him drag the chain of remorse forever! What surprises
life has in store!

The painter's coldness finally had its effect on the Alberca woman. She
seemed to awaken from the dream, in which she was lulling herself. She
drew back from her lover, and looked at him fixedly with imperious eyes,
in which a spark of pride was once more beginning to flash.

"Say that you love me! Say it at once! I need it!"

But in vain did she show her authority; in vain she brought her eyes
close to him, as if she wished to look within him. The artist smiled
faintly, murmured evasive words, refused to comply with her demands.

"Say it out loud, so that I can hear it. Say that you love me. Call me
Phryne, as you used to when you worshiped me on your knees, kissing my
body!"

He said nothing. He hung his head in shame at the memory, so as not to
see her.

The countess stood up nervously. In her anger, she drew back to the
middle of the studio, her hands clenched, her lips quivering, her eyes
flashing. She wanted to destroy something, to fall on the floor in a
convulsion. She hesitated whether to break an Arabic amphora close by,
or to fall on that bowed head and scratch it with her nails. Wretch! She
had loved him so dearly; she still cared for him so, feeling bound to
him by both vanity and habit!

"Say whether you love me," she cried. "Say it once and for all! Yes or
no?"

Still she obtained no answer. The silence was trying. Once more she
believed there was another love, a woman who had come to occupy her
place. But who was it? Where could he have found her? Her woman's
instinct made her turn her head and glance into the next studio and
beyond into the last, the real workshop of the