faith!’ We answered that we didn’t insist on a great work; that the five-act tragedy might come at his convenience; that we merely asked for something to keep us from yawning, some inexpensive little lever de rideau.  Hereupon the poor man took his stand as a genius misconceived and persecuted, an ame meconnue, and washed his hands of us from that hour!  No, I believe he does me the honour to consider me the head and front of the conspiracy formed to nip his glory in the bud—­a bud that has taken twenty years to blossom.  Ask him if he knows me, and he will tell you I am a horribly ugly old woman, who has vowed his destruction because he won’t paint her portrait as a pendant to Titian’s Flora.  I fancy that since then he has had none but chance followers, innocent strangers like yourself, who have taken him at his word.  The mountain is still in labour; I have not heard that the mouse has been born.  I pass him once in a while in the galleries, and he fixes his great dark eyes on me with a sublimity of indifference, as if I were a bad copy of a Sassoferrato!  It is a long time ago now that I heard that he was making studies for a Madonna who was to be a resume of all the other Madonnas of the Italian school—­like that antique Venus who borrowed a nose from one great image and an ankle from another.  It’s certainly a masterly idea.  The parts may be fine, but when I think of my unhappy portrait I tremble for the whole.  He has communicated this striking idea under the pledge of solemn secrecy to fifty chosen spirits, to every one he has ever been able to button-hole for five minutes.  I suppose he wants to get an order for it, and he is not to blame; for Heaven knows how he lives.  I see by your blush,” my hostess frankly continued, “that you have been honoured with his confidence.  You needn’t be ashamed, my dear young man; a man of your age is none the worse for a certain generous credulity.  Only allow me to give you a word of advice:  keep your credulity out of your pockets!  Don’t pay for the picture till it’s delivered.  You have not been treated to a peep at it, I imagine!  No more have your fifty predecessors in the faith.  There are people who doubt whether there is any picture to be seen.  I fancy, myself, that if one were to get into his studio, one would find something very like the picture in that tale of Balzac’s—­a mere mass of incoherent scratches and daubs, a jumble of dead paint!”

I listened to this pungent recital in silent wonder.  It had a painfully plausible sound, and was not inconsistent with certain shy suspicions of my own.  My hostess was not only a clever woman, but presumably a generous one.  I determined to let my judgment wait upon events.  Possibly she was right; but if she was wrong, she was cruelly wrong!  Her version of my friend’s eccentricities made me impatient to see him again and examine him in the light of public opinion.  On our next meeting I immediately asked