t in the
face. And the aspect of that bony young man, with his angular joints and
wild bearded face, increased her fears. With his black felt hat and
his old brown coat, discoloured by long usage, he looked like a kind of
brigand.

Directly he told her to make herself at home and go to bed, for he
placed his bed at her disposal, she shrinkingly replied: 'Thank you;
I'll do very well as I am; I'll not undress.'

'But your clothes are dripping,' he retorted. 'Come now, don't make an
idiot of yourself.'

And thereupon he began to knock about the chairs, and flung aside an old
screen, behind which she noticed a washstand and a tiny iron bedstead,
from which he began to remove the coverlet.

'No, no, monsieur, it isn't worth while; I assure you that I shall stay
here.'

At this, however, Claude became angry, gesticulating and shaking his
fists.

'How much more of this comedy are we to have?' said he. 'As I give you
my bed, what have you to complain of? You need not pay any attention to
me. I shall sleep on that couch.'

He strode towards her with a threatening look, and thereupon, beside
herself with fear, thinking that he was going to strike her, she
tremblingly unfastened her hat. The water was dripping from her skirts.
He kept on growling. Nevertheless, a sudden scruple seemed to come to
him, for he ended by saying, condescendingly:

'Perhaps you don't like to sleep in my sheets. I'll change them.'

He at once began dragging them from the bed and flinging them on to the
couch at the other end of the studio. And afterwards he took a clean
pair from the wardrobe and began to make the bed with all the deftness
of a bachelor accustomed to that kind of thing. He carefully tucked in
the clothes on the side near the wall, shook the pillows, and turned
back a corner of the coverlet.

'There, that'll do; won't it?' said he.

And as she did not answer, but remained motionless, he pushed her behind
the screen. 'Good heavens! what a lot of fuss,' he thought. And after
spreading his own sheets on the couch, and hanging his clothes on an
easel, he quickly went to bed himself. When he was on the point of
blowing out the candle, however, he reflected that if he did so she
would have to undress in the dark, and so he waited. At first he had
not heard her stir; she had no doubt remained standing against the
iron bedstead. But at last he detected a slight rustling, a slow,
faint movement, as if amidst her preparations she als