riends, eh? perhaps the general who has a
silver chin. What a good joke!'

So far they had gone no further than chumming like old friends. He was
almost as new to life as she, having had nothing but chance adventures,
and living in an ideal world of his own, fanciful amid romantic amours.
To see each other in secret like this, from pure friendship, without
anything more tender passing between them than a cordial shake of the
hand at her arrival, and another one when she left, seemed to them quite
natural. Still for her part she scented that he was shy, and at
times she looked at him fixedly, with the wondering perturbation of
unconscious passion. But as yet nothing ardent or agitating spoilt the
pleasure they felt in being together. Their hands remained cool; they
spoke cheerfully on all subjects; they sometimes argued like friends,
who feel sure they will not fall out. Only, this friendship grew so keen
that they could no longer live without seeing one another.

The moment Christine came, Claude took the key from outside the door.
She herself insisted upon this, lest somebody might disturb them. After
a few visits she had taken absolute possession of the studio. She seemed
to be at home there. She was tormented by a desire to make the place
a little more tidy, for such disorder worried her and made her
uncomfortable. But it was not an easy matter. The painter had strictly
forbidden Madame Joseph to sweep up things, lest the dust should get on
the fresh paint. So, on the first occasions when his companion attempted
to clean up a bit, he watched her with anxious entreating eyes. What was
the good of changing the place of things? Didn't it suffice to have them
at hand? However, she exhibited such gay determination, she seemed so
happy at playing the housewife, that he let her have her own way at
last. And now, the moment she had arrived and taken off her gloves, she
pinned up her dress to avoid soiling it, and set the big studio in order
in the twinkling of an eye. There was no longer a pile of cinders before
the stove; the screen hid the bedstead and the washstand; the couch
was brushed, the wardrobe polished; the deal table was cleared of the
crockery, and had not a stain of paint; and above the chairs, which
were symmetrically arranged, and the spanned easels propped against the
walls, the big cuckoo clock, with full-blown pink flowers on its dial,
seemed to tick more sonorously. Altogether it was magnificent; one woul