telier_:

"'_Derriere chez mon pere
Vive la rose.'
Il y a un oranger
Vive ci, vive la!
Il y a un oranger,
Vive la rose et le lilas!_"

"I was afraid you would be late."

"Why?" she asked, smiling, as she came to him across the great room.

"Women always are. But you are not a woman; you are an angel."

He looked at her closely. The strong north light showed her smooth
skin flawless.

"The white and rose is charming," he said. "And I adore freckles. But
your eyes are too deep; one can see that you have suffered. There is
too much in them for the innocent baa-lamb picture I must paint."

Her face fell. "I shan't do then?"

"Dear child, you will," he reassured her. "I shall paint your lashes
and not your eyes. Your lashes and a curve of pink cheek. Now go
behind that screen and put on the sprigged cotton frock you will find
there, with a muslin fichu and a mob cap. I have a basket of wools
here and a piece of tapestry. The sort of woman I have never painted
is always doing needlework."

Camille spent half the morning in the arrangement of the accessories
that were, as he said, to suggest virtuous domesticity; then he
settled the folds of the girl's skirt, the turn of her head, her
hands. At last, when he was satisfied, he went to his easel and began
to work. Olive had never before realised how hard it is to keep quite
still. The muscles of her neck ached and her face seemed to grow stiff
and set; she felt her hands quivering.

Hours seemed to pass before his voice broke the silence. "I have
drawn it in," he announced. "You can rest now. Come down and see some
of my pictures."

He showed her his "Salome," a Hebrew maenad, whose scarlet, parted lips
ached for the desert dreamer's death; "Lucrezia Borgia," slow-smiling,
crowned with golden hair; and a rough charcoal study for Queen
Eleanor.

"I seem to see you as Henry's Rosamund," he said. "I wonder--the
haunting shadow of coming sorrow in blue eyes. You have suffered."

"I am hungry," she answered.

He looked at his watch. "Forgive me! It is past noon. Run away, child,
and come back at two."

The day seemed very long in spite of Camille's easy kindness, and the
girl shrank from the subsequent sitting at Varini's.

"Why do you pose for those wretched boys?" grumbled the Prix de Rome
man. "After this week you must come to me only. I must paint a
Rosamund."

At sunset she hurried down the hill to the Corso, and came by wa