ts of my studio. Your absence will create a void."

"About as much as if this or that were gone," said Jacqueline, in a hurt
tone, pointing first to a Japanese bronze and then to an Etruscan vase;
"with only this difference, that you care least for the living object."

"You are bitter, Mademoiselle."

"Because you make me such provoking answers, Monsieur. My feeling
is different," she went on impetuously, "I could pass my whole life
watching you paint."

"You would get tired of it probably in the long run."

"Never!" she cried, blushing a deep red.

"And you would have to put up with my pipe--that big pipe yonder--a
horror."

"I should like it," she cried, with conviction.

"But you would not like my bad temper. If you knew how ill I can
behave sometimes! I can scold, I can become unbearable, when this, for
example," here he pointed with his mahlstick to the Savonarola, "does
not please me."

"But it is beautiful--so beautiful!"

"It is detestable. I shall have to go back some day and renew my
impressions of Florence--see once more the Piazze of the Signora and
San Marco--and then I shall begin my picture all over again. Let us go
together--will you?"

"Oh!" she cried, fervently, "think of seeing Italy!--and with you!"

"It might not be so great a pleasure as you think. Nothing is such a
bore as to travel with people who are pervaded by one idea, and my
'idee fixe' is my picture--my great Dominican. He has taken complete
possession of me--he overshadows me. I can think of nothing but him."

"Oh! but you think of me sometimes, I suppose," said Jacqueline, softly,
"for I share your time with him."

"I think of you to blame you for taking me away from the fifteenth
century," replied Hubert Marien, half seriously. "Ouf!--There! it is
done at last. That dimple I never could manage I have got in for better
or for worse. Now you may fly off. I set you at liberty--you poor little
thing!"

She seemed in no hurry to profit by his permission. She stood perfectly
still in the middle of the studio.

"Do you think I have posed well, faithfully, and with docility all these
weeks?" she asked at last.

"I will give you a certificate to that effect, if you like. No one could
have done better."

"And if the certificate is not all I want, will you give me some other
present?"

"A beautiful portrait--what can you want more?"

"The picture is for mamma. I ask a favor on my own account."

"I refuse it beforehand. B