fellow, you are quite worthless as a man of pleasure
Society people condemned to hypocrisy and falsehood

A ROMANCE OF YOUTH

By FRANCOIS COPPEE

BOOK 4.

CHAPTER XIV

TOO LATE!

It had been more than three months since Maria and Maurice had met again.
One day the young man went to the Louvre to see his favorite pictures of
the painters of the Eighteenth Century. His attention was attracted by
the beautiful hair of a young artist dressed in black, who was copying
one of Rosalba's portraits. It was our pretty pastel artist whose
wonderful locks disturbed all the daubers in the museum, and which made
colorists out of Signol's pupils themselves. Maurice approached the
copyist, and then both exclaimed at once:

"Mademoiselle Maria!"

"Monsieur Maurice!"

She had recognized him so quickly and with such a charming smile, she had
not, then, forgotten him? When he used to visit Pere Gerard he had
noticed that she was not displeased with him; but after such a long time,
at first sight, to obtain such a greeting, such a delighted
exclamation--it was flattering!

The young man standing by her easel, with his hat off, so graceful and
elegant in his well-cut garments, began to talk with her. He spoke first,
in becoming and proper terms, of her father's death; inquired for her
mother and sister, congratulated himself upon having been recognized
thus, and then yielding to his bold custom, he added:

"As to myself, I hesitated at first. You have grown still more beautiful
in two years."

As she blushed, he continued, in a joking way, which excused his
audacity:

"Amedee told me that you had become delicious, but now I hardly dare ask
him for news of you. Ever since you have lived at Montmartre--and I know
that he sees you every Sunday--he has never offered to take me with him
to pay my respects. Upon my word of honor, Mademoiselle Maria, I believe
that he is in love with you and as jealous as a Turk."

She protested against it, confused but still smiling.

Ah! if he had known of the dream that Maria had kept concealed in one
corner of her heart ever since their first meeting. If he had known that
her only desire was to be chosen and loved by this handsome Maurice, who
had gone through their house and among poor Papa Gerard's bric-a-brac
like a meteor! Why not, after all? Did she not possess that great power,
beauty? Her father, her mother, and even her sister, the wise Louise, had
often said