’Oh, friend, don’t grieve!  I wished to see and tell you that they are jealous of it all, that I found the picture very nice, and that I feel very proud and happy at having helped you—­at being, if ever so little, a part of it.’

Still, motionless, he listened to her as she stammered those tender words in an ardent voice, and suddenly he sank down at her feet, letting his head fall upon her knees, and bursting into tears.  All his excitement of the afternoon, all the bravery he had shown amidst the jeering, all his gaiety and violence now collapsed, in a fit of sobs which well nigh choked him.  From the gallery where the laughter had buffeted him, he heard it pursuing him through the Champs Elysees, then along the banks of the Seine, and now in his very studio.  His strength was utterly spent; he felt weaker than a child; and rolling his head from one side to another he repeated in a stifled voice: 

‘My God! how I do suffer!’

Then she, with both hands, raised his face to her lips in a transport of passion.  She kissed him, and with her warm breath she blew to his very heart the words:  ‘Be quiet, be quiet, I love you!’

They adored each other; it was inevitable.  Near them, on the centre of the table, the lilac she had sent him that morning embalmed the night air, and, alone shiny with lingering light, the scattered particles of gold leaf, wafted from the frame of the big picture, twinkled like a swarming of stars.

VI

THE very next morning, at seven o’clock, Christine was at the studio, her face still flushed by the falsehood which she had told Madame Vanzade about a young friend from Clermont whom she was to meet at the station, and with whom she should spend the day.

Claude, overjoyed by the idea of spending a whole day with her, wanted to take her into the country, far away under the glorious sunlight, so as to have her entirely to himself.  She was delighted; they scampered off like lunatics, and reached the St. Lazare Station just in time to catch the Havre train.  He knew, beyond Mantes, a little village called Bennecourt, where there was an artists’ inn which he had at times invaded with some comrades; and careless as to the two hours’ rail, he took her to lunch there, just as he would have taken her to Asnieres.  She made very merry over this journey, to which there seemed no end.  So much the better if it were to take them to the end of the world!  It seemed to them as if evening would never come.

At ten o’clock they alighted at Bonnieres; and there they took the ferry—­an old ferry-boat that creaked and grated against its chain —­for Bennecourt is situated on the opposite bank of the Seine.  It was a splendid May morning, the rippling waters were spangled with gold in the sunlight, the young foliage showed delicately green against the cloudless azure.  And, beyond the islets situated at this point of the river, how delightful it was to find the country inn, with its little grocery business attached, its large common room smelling of soapsuds, and its spacious yard full of manure, on which the ducks disported themselves.