“Every day?” said Herkimer.

“Every day.”

“And when you had a model?”

“Oh, then it was worse.  She treated the models as though they were convicts, watching them out of the corners of her eyes.  Her demonstration of affection redoubled, her caresses never stopped, as though she wished to impress upon them her proprietorship.  Those days she was really jealous.”

“God—­how could you stand it?” said Herkimer, violently.

“To be frank, the more she outraged me as an artist, the more she pleased me as a man.  To be loved so absolutely, especially if you are sensitive to such things, has an intoxication of its own, yes, she fascinated me more and more.”

“Extraordinary.”

“One day I tried to make her understand that I had need to be alone.  She listened to me solemnly, with only a little quiver of her lips, and let me go.  When I returned, I found her eyes swollen with weeping and her heart bursting.”

“And you took her in your arms and promised never to send her away again.”

“Naturally.  Then I began to go out into society to please her.  Next something very interesting came up, and I neglected my studio for a morning.  The same thing happened again and again.  I had a period of wild revolt, of bitter anger, in which I resolved to be firm, to insist on my privacy, to make the fight.”

“And you never did?”

“When her arms were about me, when I saw her eyes, full of adoration and passion, raised to my own, I forgot all my irritation in my happiness as a man.  I said to myself, ’Life is short; it is better to be loved than to wait for glory.’  One afternoon, under the pretext of examining the grove, I stole away to the studio, and pulled out some of the old things that I had done in Paris—­and sat and gazed at them.  My throat began to fill, and I felt the tears coming to my eyes, when I looked around and saw her standing wide-eyed at the door.

“‘What are you doing?’ she said.

“‘Looking at some of the old things.’

“‘You regret those days?’

“‘Of course not.’

“’Then why do you steal away from me, make a pretext to come here?  Isn’t my love great enough for you?  Do you want to put me out of your life altogether?  You used to tell me that I inspired you.  If you want, we’ll give up the afternoons.  I’ll come here, I’ll be your model, I’ll sit for you by the hour—­only don’t shut the door on me!’

“She began to cry.  I took her in my arms, said everything that she wished me to say, heedlessly, brutally, not caring what I said.

“That night I ran off, resolved to end it all—­to save what I longed for.  I remained five hours trudging in the night—­pulled back and forth.  I remembered my children.  I came back,—­told a lie.  The next day I shut the door of the studio not on her, but on myself.

“For months I did nothing.  I was miserable.  She saw it at last, and said to me: