e in soothing matters down, explaining to the
angry students that Dampierre was of hot southern blood and that his
words must not be taken seriously. Americans, he said, especially in the
south, had no idea of what the English call chaff, and he begged them as
a personal favor to abstain from joking with him, or it would only lead
to trouble in the studio.

CHAPTER V.

There was no more talk after the master had given the order for work.
Most of the easels were shifted round and fresh positions taken up, then
there was a little pause.

"She is late," M. Goude said, with an impatient stamp of the foot. The
words were scarcely out of his mouth when the door opened and a girl
entered.

"Good-morning, messieurs," and she made a sweeping courtesy.

"You are five minutes late, Minette."

"Ma foi, master, what would you have with the Prussians in sight and all
Paris in the streets--five minutes mean neither here nor there. I
expected praise for having come at all."

"There, there," the artist said hastily, "run into your closet and
change, we are all waiting."

She walked across the room to a door in the corner, with an expression
of careless defiance in her face, and reappeared in five minutes in the
dress of a Mexican peasant girl attired for a fete. The dress suited her
admirably. She was rather above the middle height, her figure lithe and
supple with exceptionally graceful curves; her head was admirably poised
on her neck. Her hair was very dark, and her complexion Spanish rather
than French. Her father was from Marseilles and her mother from Arles.

Minette was considered the best model in Paris, and M. Goude had the
merit of having discovered her. Three years before, when passing through
a street inhabited by the poorer class of workmen in Montmartre, he had
seen her leaning carelessly against a doorway. He was struck with the
easy grace of her pose. He walked up the street and then returned. As he
did so he saw her spring out and encounter an older woman, and at once
enter upon a fierce altercation with her. It was carried on with all the
accompaniment of southern gesture and ceased as suddenly as it began;
the girl, with a gesture of scorn and contempt turning and walking back
to the post she had left with a mien as haughty as that of a Queen
dismissing an insolent subject.

"That girl would be worth a fortune as a model," the artist muttered. "I
must secure her; her action and gesture are superb."