the necessary steps to
release the person in whom you are interested. Go and meet her.' What do
you think of that? So off I ran to find Zora, and here we are."

Andre did not pay much attention to Gaston, but was engaged in watching
Zora, who was looking round the studio. She went up to Sabine's
portrait, and was about to draw the curtain, when Andre exclaimed,--

"Excuse me," said he; "I must put this picture to dry." And as the
portrait stood on a moveable easel, he wheeled it into the adjoining
room.

"And now," said Gaston, "I want you to come and breakfast with us to
celebrate Zora's happy release."

"I am much obliged to you, but it is impossible. I must get on with my
work."

"Yes, yes; work is an excellent thing, but just now you must go and
dress."

"I assure you that it is quite out of the question. I cannot leave the
studio yet."

Gaston paused for a moment in deep thought.

"I have it," said he triumphantly. "You will not come to breakfast; then
breakfast shall come to you. I am off to order it."

Andre ran after him, but Gaston was too quick, and he returned to the
studio in anything but an amiable temper. Zora noticed his evident
annoyance.

"He always goes on in this absurd way," said she, with a shrug of her
pretty shoulders, "and thinks himself so clever and witty, bah!"

Her tone disclosed such contempt for Gaston that Andre looked at her in
perplexed surprise.

"What do you look so astonished at? It is easy to see you do not know
much of him. All his friends are just like him; if you listen to them
for half an hour at a stretch, you get regularly sick. When I think of
the terrible evenings that I have spent in their company, I feel ready
to die with yawning;" and as she spoke, she suited the action to the
word. "Ah! if he really loved me!" added she.

"Love you! Why, he adores you."

Zora made a little gesture of contempt which Toto Chupin might have
envied.

"Do you think so?" said she. "Do you know what it is he loves in me?
When people pass me they cry out, 'Isn't she good style?' and then the
idiot is as pleased as Punch; but if I had on a cotton gown, he would
think nothing of me."

Rose had evidently learned a good ideal, as her beauty had never been so
radiant. She was one glow of health and strength.

"Then my name was not good enough for him," she went on. "His
aristocratic lips could not bring themselves to utter such a common name
as Rose, so he christened me Zora,