and would, therefore, require
very great talent to treat it effectively; and so he murmured:

"Oh, 'tisn't easy--'tisn't easy!"

"No matter, as long as it is life-like," urged Rosanette.

"Pooh! what do I care about a thing being life-like? Down with Realism!
'Tis the spirit that must be portrayed by the painter! Let me alone! I
am going to try to conjure up what it ought to be!"

He reflected, with his left hand clasping his brow, and with his right
hand clutching his elbow; then, all of a sudden:

"Ha, I have an idea! a pastel! With coloured mezzotints, almost spread
out flat, a lovely model could be obtained with the outer surface
alone!"

He sent the chambermaid to look for his box of colours; then, having a
chair under his feet and another by his side, he began to throw out
great touches with as much complacency as if he had drawn them in
accordance with the bust. He praised the little Saint John of Correggio,
the Infanta Rosa of Velasquez, the milk-white flesh-tints of Reynolds,
the distinction of Lawrence, and especially the child with long hair
that sits in Lady Gower's lap.

"Besides, could you find anything more charming than these little toads?
The type of the sublime (Raphael has proved it by his Madonnas) is
probably a mother with her child?"

Rosanette, who felt herself stifling, went away; and presently Pellerin
said:

"Well, about Arnoux; you know what has happened?"

"No! What?"

"However, it was bound to end that way!"

"What has happened, might I ask?"

"Perhaps by this time he is----Excuse me!"

The artist got up in order to raise the head of the little corpse
higher.

"You were saying----" Frederick resumed.

And Pellerin, half-closing his eyes, in order to take his dimensions
better:

"I was saying that our friend Arnoux is perhaps by this time locked up!"

Then, in a tone of satisfaction:

"Just give a little glance at it. Is that the thing?"

"Yes, 'tis quite right. But about Arnoux?"

Pellerin laid down his pencil.

"As far as I could understand, he was sued by one Mignot, an intimate
friend of Regimbart--a long-headed fellow that, eh? What an idiot! Just
imagine! one day----"

"What! it's not Regimbart that's in question, is it?"

"It is, indeed! Well, yesterday evening, Arnoux had to produce twelve
thousand francs; if not, he was a ruined man."

"Oh! this perhaps is exaggerated," said Frederick.

"Not a bit. It looked to me a very serious business, very seri