character--whenever my heart is full my
mouth refuses to overflow."

"Foolish woman!" laughed the artist, hastily wiping her brush and
preparing herself to go out. "You of the public always imagine that we
want to hear eulogies. When you lose the power of speech from
admiration, and make the most foolish and enraptured faces, I like you
a thousand times better."

Angelica called the janitor, who was busily engaged in the yard
brushing away the moths from an old piece of Gobelin tapestry that
Rosenbusch had recently bought. While he went off to fetch the key to
the studio, she whispered to her friend:

"We will not go first into the saint-factory, but pass at once into
the holy of holies! It is always painful to see how even such an
artist--one of the few great ones--must use his art to gain bread. It
is true, no human being can imagine why he really has to do it. He
needs almost nothing for himself. And, since he stands quite alone in
the world--to be sure, though, that needs yet to be proved--his saints
must bring him in a great deal of money. What he does with it, whether
he buries it as the wages of sin, walls it up, or speculates with it on
the Bourse-- But here comes our old factotum with the key. Thank you,
Fridolin. Here is something for your trouble. Drink a measure to the
health of this beautiful lady. What, she pleases you too? To be sure
you have had an opportunity to cultivate your taste, living as you do
among artists."

The flattered old man grinned, attempted to stammer a compliment, and
opened the studio door. Angelica immediately ran up to the "Dancing
Girl" and began to free her from the damp cloths wrapped about her.

"Now, place yourself here!" she cried, when the figure was entirely
exposed. "To be sure she is divine seen from any side, but viewed in
half-profile--taking in just a little of the back and the outline
standing out so clearly against the bright sky--is it not ravishing?
Does not one feel as if it were just going to spring from its pedestal
and rush through the room, dragging one with it in its mad whirl? I can
never look at this work without my old love for dancing coming back to
me in my old age, and vibrating through every limb! It is a pity that I
am such an ungraceful person, otherwise you would have to tuck up your
dress and dance a reel with me."

And she did indeed make a few very lively movements, which were
grotesque enough.

"I entreat you, Angelica, be sensible! You