So far they had gone no further than chumming like old friends.  He was almost as new to life as she, having had nothing but chance adventures, and living in an ideal world of his own, fanciful amid romantic amours.  To see each other in secret like this, from pure friendship, without anything more tender passing between them than a cordial shake of the hand at her arrival, and another one when she left, seemed to them quite natural.  Still for her part she scented that he was shy, and at times she looked at him fixedly, with the wondering perturbation of unconscious passion.  But as yet nothing ardent or agitating spoilt the pleasure they felt in being together.  Their hands remained cool; they spoke cheerfully on all subjects; they sometimes argued like friends, who feel sure they will not fall out.  Only, this friendship grew so keen that they could no longer live without seeing one another.

The moment Christine came, Claude took the key from outside the door.  She herself insisted upon this, lest somebody might disturb them.  After a few visits she had taken absolute possession of the studio.  She seemed to be at home there.  She was tormented by a desire to make the place a little more tidy, for such disorder worried her and made her uncomfortable.  But it was not an easy matter.  The painter had strictly forbidden Madame Joseph to sweep up things, lest the dust should get on the fresh paint.  So, on the first occasions when his companion attempted to clean up a bit, he watched her with anxious entreating eyes.  What was the good of changing the place of things?  Didn’t it suffice to have them at hand?  However, she exhibited such gay determination, she seemed so happy at playing the housewife, that he let her have her own way at last.  And now, the moment she had arrived and taken off her gloves, she pinned up her dress to avoid soiling it, and set the big studio in order in the twinkling of an eye.  There was no longer a pile of cinders before the stove; the screen hid the bedstead and the washstand; the couch was brushed, the wardrobe polished; the deal table was cleared of the crockery, and had not a stain of paint; and above the chairs, which were symmetrically arranged, and the spanned easels propped against the walls, the big cuckoo clock, with full-blown pink flowers on its dial, seemed to tick more sonorously.  Altogether it was magnificent; one would not have recognised the place.  He, stupefied, watched her trotting to and fro, twisting about and singing as she went.  Was this then the lazybones who had such dreadful headaches at the least bit of work?  But she laughed; at headwork, yes; but exertion with her hands and feet did her good, seemed to straighten her like a young sapling.  She confessed, even as she would have confessed some depraved taste, her liking for lowly household cares; a liking which had greatly worried her mother, whose educational ideal consisted of accomplishments, and who would have made her a governess with soft hands, touching nothing