ything. He could no longer plainly distinguish either
the floor, or the furniture, or the sketches; everything that was lying
about seemed to be melting in the stagnant waters of a pool. But on
the edge of the couch there loomed a dark figure, stiff with waiting,
anxious and despairing amid the last gasp of daylight. It was Christine;
he recognised her.

She held out her hands, and murmured in a low, halting voice:

'I have been here for three hours; yes, for three hours, all alone, and
listening. I took a cab on leaving there, and I only wanted to stay a
minute, and get back as soon as possible. But I should have stayed all
night; I could not go away without shaking hands with you.'

She continued, and told him of her mad desire to see the picture; her
prank of going to the Salon, and how she had tumbled into it amidst the
storm of laughter, amidst the jeers of all those people. It was she whom
they had hissed like that; it was on herself that they had spat. And
seized with wild terror, distracted with grief and shame, she had fled,
as if she could feel that laughter lashing her like a whip, until the
blood flowed. But she now forgot about herself in her concern for
him, upset by the thought of the grief he must feel, for her womanly
sensibility magnified the bitterness of the repulse, and she was eager
to console.

'Oh, friend, don't grieve! I wished to see and tell you that they are
jealous of it all, that I found the picture very nice, and that I feel
very proud and happy at having helped you--at being, if ever so little,
a part of it.'

Still, motionless, he listened to her as she stammered those tender
words in an ardent voice, and suddenly he sank down at her feet,
letting his head fall upon her knees, and bursting into tears. All his
excitement of the afternoon, all the bravery he had shown amidst the
jeering, all his gaiety and violence now collapsed, in a fit of sobs
which well nigh choked him. From the gallery where the laughter had
buffeted him, he heard it pursuing him through the Champs Elysees, then
along the banks of the Seine, and now in his very studio. His strength
was utterly spent; he felt weaker than a child; and rolling his head
from one side to another he repeated in a stifled voice:

'My God! how I do suffer!'

Then she, with both hands, raised his face to her lips in a transport of
passion. She kissed him, and with her warm breath she blew to his very
heart the words: 'Be quiet, be quie