"You are not mistaken," replied the young man, "I burn like a devil, and at the same time I am as happy as a god."
"Well, now I am going to escort these ladies, and to-morrow I will have a talk with you."
Esperance slept badly and woke late. The old Mademoiselle was sitting beside her, spectacles across her nose, reading the papers. Her kind face was beaming. She was cutting out and putting aside certain articles, then she pinned them in order, all ready to send to M. and Madame Darbois.
The young girl was touched, and raising herself in bed, flung her arms about the old lady.
"What a dear you are, and how I love you!"
Mlle. Frahender at that moment had her reward for all the little sacrifices she had made for her pupil.
The critics were dithyrambic in their discourses concerning the new "Dona Sol," but the casual reporters were, as always, indiscreet, and disguised the truth under little prevarications, fantastic and suggestive. After having read two or three of the articles, Esperance pushed them all aside. She took the name of all the critics, and wrote them little notes of thanks, while Mlle. Frahender added the addresses. In the neighbouring room a discussion was going on between her knight-attendants. Esperance did not gather its cause, although certain phrases were audible.
"No, I tell you," Maurice was saying, "if it is worth while at all, I must be the one."
"I could always demand a correction," replied Jean.
"Correction of what? It is simply one of those ambiguous phrases which are used every day. Why notice it?"
The sound of Esperance's voice cut short their discussion.
"What are you talking about?" she called out.
"Nothing at all," returned Maurice, "that is, only stupid things you would not understand."
"That is not a very gallant morning greeting, cousin, but you have not forgotten your promise to lake me to the Museum this morning, I hope."
"Yes, my dear, we will go to the Museum in a very little while."
"There is nothing I need, thank you. I just want to know what correction you were talking about."
"It is a private affair of Maurice's," stammered the young actor.
After lunch the travellers set out for the Museum. Maurice was surprised and delighted by the instinct that guided his cousin towards the best that was in the pictures. He explained to her in the language affected by painters the reason for certain unreal shadows in a certain picture, and the necessity for them, the tact a painter must use in managing his light, the difficulty of foreshortening. He told her the well-known anecdote of Delacroix replying to the professor who objected that he had put a full face eye in a profile, "But, my dear master, I have tried everything and that is the only eye that gives the profile its proper value." And the professor of the great painter-to-be, after several sketches on the transparent paper over his pupil's canvas, said to him, "You are entirely right. Keep that full face eye."