The day was nearly done.  The people began to scatter.  The shadows grew very long.  He painted, not glancing once elsewhere than at his study.  Bebee’s baskets were quite empty.

She rose, and lingered, and regarded him wistfully:  he was angered; perhaps she had been rude?  Her little heart failed her.

If he would only look up!

But he did not look up; he kept his handsome dark face studiously over the canvas of the Broodhuis.  She would have seen a smile in his eyes if he had lifted them; but he never raised his lids.

Bebee hesitated:  take the stockings she would not; but perhaps she had refused them too roughly.  She wished so that he would look up and save her speaking first; but he knew what he was about too warily and well to help her thus.

She waited awhile, then took one little red moss-rosebud that she had saved all day in a corner of her basket, and held it out to him frankly, shyly, as a peace offering.

“Was I rude?  I did not mean to be.  But I cannot take the stockings; and why did you tell me that falsehood?”

He took the rosebud and rose too, and smiled; but he did not meet her eyes.

“Let us forget the whole matter; it is not worth a sou.  If you do not take the box, leave it; it is of no use to me.”

“I cannot take it.”

She knew she was doing right.  How was it that he could make her feel as though she were acting wrongly?

“Leave it then, I say.  You are not the first woman, my dear, who has quarrelled with a wish fulfilled.  It is a way your sex has of rewarding gods and men.—­Here, you old witch, here is a treasure-trove for you.  You can sell it for ten francs in the town anywhere.”

As he spoke he tossed the casket and the stockings in it to an old decrepit woman, who was passing by with a baker’s cart drawn by a dog; and, not staying to heed her astonishment, gathered his colors and easel together.

The tears swam in Bebee’s eyes as she saw the box whirled through the air.

She had done right; she was sure she had done right.

He was a stranger, and she could never have repaid him; but he made her feel herself wayward and ungrateful, and it was hard to see the beautiful fairy gift borne away forever by the chuckling, hobbling, greedy old baker’s woman.  If he had only taken it himself, she would have been glad then to have been brave and to have done her duty.

But it was not in his design that she should be glad.

He saw her tears, but he seemed not to see them.

“Good night, Bebee,” he said carelessly, as he sauntered aside from her.  “Good night, my dear.  To-morrow I will finish my painting; but I will not offend you by any more gifts.”

Bebee lifted her drooped head, and looked him in the eyes eagerly, with a certain sturdy resolve and timid wistfulness intermingled in her look.