Irma promised to keep his secret.  Suddenly she exclaimed, “We are all of us no better than lackeys and kitchen-maids.  We are kept busy stewing, roasting, and cooking for weeks, in order to prepare a dish that may please their Majesties.”

The intendant made no reply.

“Do you remember,” continued Irma, “how, when we were at the lake, we spoke of the fact that man possessed the advantage of being able to change his dress, and thus to alter his appearance?  While yet a child, masquerading was my greatest delight.  The soul wings its flight in callow infancy.  A bal costume is indeed one of the noblest fruits of culture.  The love of coquetry which is innate with all of us displays itself there undisguised.”

The intendant took his leave.  While walking away, his mind was filled with his old thoughts about Irma.

“No,” said he to himself, “such a woman would be a constant strain, and would require one to be brilliant and intellectual all day long.  She would exhaust one,” said he, almost aloud.

No one knew what character Irma intended to appear in, although many supposed that it would be as “Victory,” since it was well known that she had stood for the model of the statue that surmounted the arsenal.  They were busy conjecturing how she could assume that character without violating the social proprieties.

Irma spent much of her time in the atelier, and worked assiduously.  She was unable to escape a feeling of unrest, far greater than that she had experienced years ago when looking forward to her first ball.  She could not reconcile herself to the idea of preparing for the fete so long beforehand, and would like to have had it take place in the very next hour, so that something else might be taken up at once.  The long delay tried her patience.  She almost envied those beings to whom the preparation for pleasure affords the greatest part of the enjoyment.  Work alone calmed her unrest.  She had something to do, and this prevented the thoughts of the festival from engaging her mind during the day.  It was only in the evening that she would recompense herself for the day’s work, by giving full swing to her fancy.

The statue of Victory was still in the atelier and was almost finished.  High ladders were placed beside it.  The artist was still chiseling at the figure, and would now and then hurry down to observe the general effect, and then hastily mount the ladder again in order to add a touch here or there.  Irma scarcely ventured to look up at this effigy of herself in Grecian costume—­transformed and yet herself.  The idea of being thus translated into the purest of art’s forms filled her with a tremor, half joy, half fear.

It was on a winter afternoon.  Irma was working assiduously at a copy of a bust of Theseus, for it was growing dark.  Near her stood her preceptor’s marble bust of Doctor Gunther.  All was silent; not a sound was heard save now and then the picking or scratching of the chisel.