By a singular caprice of nature, the charm of her face was, in some degree, contradicted by a marble forehead, on which lay an almost savage pride, and from which seemed to emanate the moral instincts of a Corsican.  In that was the only link between herself and her native land.  All the rest of her person, her simplicity, the easy grace of her Lombard beauty, was so seductive that it was difficult for those who looked at her to give her pain.  She inspired such keen attraction that her old father caused her, as matter of precaution, to be accompanied to and from the studio.  The only defect of this truly poetic creature came from the very power of a beauty so fully developed; she looked a woman.  Marriage she had refused out of love to her father and mother, feeling herself necessary to the comfort of their old age.  Her taste for painting took the place of the passions and interests which usually absorb her sex.

“You are very silent to-day, mesdemoiselles,” she said, after advancing a little way among her companions.  “Good-morning, my little Laure,” she added, in a soft, caressing voice, approaching the young girl who was painting apart from the rest.  “That head is strong,—­the flesh tints a little too rosy, but the drawing is excellent.”

Laure raised her head and looked tenderly at Ginevra; their faces beamed with the expression of a mutual affection.  A faint smile brightened the lips of the young Italian, who seemed thoughtful, and walked slowly to her easel, glancing carelessly at the drawings and paintings on her way, and bidding good-morning to each of the young girls of the first group, not observing the unusual curiosity excited by her presence.  She was like a queen in the midst of her court; she paid no attention to the profound silence that reigned among the patricians, and passed before their camp without pronouncing a single word.  Her absorption seemed so great that she sat down before her easel, opened her color-box, took up her brushes, drew on her brown sleeves, arranged her apron, looked at her picture, examined her palette, without, apparently, thinking of what she was doing.  All heads in the group of the bourgeoises were turned toward her.  If the young ladies in the Thirion camp did not show their impatience with the same frankness, their sidelong glances were none the less directed on Ginevra.

“She hasn’t noticed it!” said Mademoiselle Roguin.

At this instant Ginevra abandoned the meditative attitude in which she had been contemplating her canvas, and turned her head toward the group of aristocrats.  She measured, at a glance, the distance that now separated her from them; but she said nothing.

“It hasn’t occurred to her that they meant to insult her,” said Matilde; “she neither colored nor turned pale.  How vexed these girls will be if she likes her new place as well as the old!  You are out of bounds, mademoiselle,” she added, aloud, addressing Ginevra.