drawn towards it at first by her love for the painter, and gained over afterwards by the feast of light, by the original charm of the bright tints which Claude’s works displayed.  And now she had accepted everything, even lilac-tinted soil and blue trees.  Indeed, a kind of respect made her quiver before those works which had at first seemed so horrid to her.  She recognised their power well enough, and treated them like rivals about whom one could no longer joke.  But her vindictiveness grew in proportion to her admiration; she revolted at having to stand by and witness, as it were, a diminution of herself, the blow of another love beneath her own roof.

At first there was a silent struggle of every minute.  She thrust herself forward, interposed whatever she could, a hand, a shoulder, between the painter and his picture.  She was always there, encompassing him with her breath, reminding him that he was hers.  Then her old idea revived—­she also would paint; she would seek and join him in the depths of his art fever.  Every day for a whole month she put on a blouse, and worked like a pupil by the side of a master, diligently copying one of his sketches, and she only gave in when she found the effort turn against her object; for, deceived, as it were, by their joint work, he finished by forgetting that she was a woman, and lived with her on a footing of mere comradeship as between man and man.  Accordingly she resorted to what was her only strength.

To perfect some of the small figures of his latter pictures, Claude had many a time already taken the hint of a head, the pose of an arm, the attitude of a body from Christine.  He threw a cloak over her shoulders, and caught her in the posture he wanted, shouting to her not to stir.  These were little services which she showed herself only too pleased to render him, but she had not hitherto cared to go further, for she was hurt by the idea of being a model now that she was his wife.  However, since Claude had broadly outlined the large upright female figure which was to occupy the centre of his picture, Christine had looked at the vague silhouette in a dreamy way, worried by an ever-pursuing thought before which all scruples vanished.  And so, when he spoke of taking a model, she offered herself, reminding him that she had posed for the figure in the ‘Open Air’ subject, long ago.  ‘A model,’ she added, ’would cost you seven francs a sitting.  We are not so rich, we may as well save the money.’

The question of economy decided him at once.

’I’m agreeable, and it’s even very good of you to show such courage, for you know that it is not a bit of pastime to sit for me.  Never mind, you had better confess to it, you big silly, you are afraid of another woman coming here; you are jealous.’

Jealous!  Yes, indeed she was jealous, so she suffered agony.  But she snapped her fingers at other women; all the models in Paris might have sat to him for what she cared.  She had but one rival, that painting, that art which robbed her of him.