heard a half-suppressed cry from the lips of her friend.

"Now, don't you see that I was right?" she cried. "It is beautiful
enough to shriek over. No respectable person can see such a thing
without uttering a few inarticulate sounds. But, for Heaven's sake!"
she cried, interrupting herself and rushing to Julie, whom she saw turn
suddenly pale and step backward, "what is the matter with you, my own
love? You are so very--speak--what has so--gracious Heaven! That!
I never would have believed it myself! Such a surprise--such an
unheard-of piece of treachery and meanness! And, with all that, so
extraordinarily well carried out! Oh, this Jansen! So that accounts for
the pins--that accounts for his not wishing to show the group to any
one for the last fortnight!"

Julie had retreated to the window and stood there, undecided what to
do, her head sunk upon her heaving breast. But the painter, in whom
enthusiasm had banished all alarm about her agitated friend, stood with
folded hands, as if absorbed in worship, before the work that was so
well known to her, and upon which, nevertheless, she gazed in utter
surprise. For since she saw it last the head of Eve, that was
then in the first rough stage of development, had assumed a firm,
carefully-executed form, and the face, sweetly bowed forward, with
which she gazed at the man just awakening from sleep, resembled,
feature for feature, the beautiful girl who now, sinking down into her
chair in an indescribable state of confusion, shame, and anger, looked
up at her own image.

And then it would have been most edifying for a third person to have
overheard how the painter, as soon as she had overcome the first shock,
now strove to enter into the spirit of her friend and storm over the
robbery of her beauty; now strove to make it clear to her that there
was nothing wrong or improper in the whole matter. Then, when she had
run on for a while in the most enraptured terms about this magnificent
work, the majesty and the charm of these forms, she suddenly became
woman enough again to find the undeniable resemblance of the features
of this beautiful Eve, in her paradisaical innocence, a very serious
thing after all. To be sure, she strove to defend the artist; no one
could help his inspirations, and the more than life-size scale removed
the work from all realistic consideration. But her burning cheeks told
her better than anything else that she was not made to be a good
devil's-advocate;