“You feel like my poor Lucien, when an interruption offers itself to his work; but, as I say, ennui is the price of admiration!  Is it not so, Monsieur Max?”

She leaned her blonde head to one side, and looked at him with the naive quality of meditation that so became her.

“Do not permit me to disturb you, monsieur!  Continue working.”

“Thank you, mademoiselle!” A flicker of irony was observable in the tone and, with exaggerated zeal, he returned to his task.

The girl came softly behind him, looking over his shoulder.

“What is the picture to be, monsieur?”

“It is an idea caught last night in a cabaret.  It would not interest you.”

“And why not?”

Max shrugged his shoulders, and went on blocking in his picture.

“Because it is a psychological study—­a side-issue of existence.  Nothing to do with the crude facts of life.”

“Oh!” Jacqueline drew in her breath softly.  “I am only interested, then, in the crude facts?  How do you arrive at that conclusion, monsieur?”

“By observation, mademoiselle.”

“And what have you observed?”

“It is difficult to say—­in words.  In a picture I would put it like this—­a blue sky, a meadow of rank green grass, a stream full of forget-me-nots, and a girl bending over it, with eyes the color of the flowers.  Conventionality would compel me to call it Spring or Youth!” He spoke fast and he spoke contemptuously.

She watched him, her head still characteristically drooping, the little wise smile hovering about her lips.

“I comprehend!” she murmured to herself.  “Monsieur is very worldly-wise.  Monsieur has discovered that there is—­how shall I say?—­less atmosphere in a blue sky than in a gray one?”

Max glanced round at her.  He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being laughed at, but her clear azure eyes met his innocently, and her mouth was guiltless of smiles.

“I have had a sufficiency of blue sky,” he said, and returned to his work.

“One is liable to think that, monsieur, until the rain falls!”

“So you doubt the endurance of my philosophy?”

She shrugged; she extended her pretty hands expressively.

“Monsieur is young!”

The words exasperated Max.  Again it had arisen—­the old argument.  The anger smouldering in his heart since the girl’s invasion flamed to speech.

“I could wish that the world was less ready with that opinion, mademoiselle!  It knows very little of what it says.”

“Possibly, monsieur! but you admit that—­that you are scarcely aged.”  There was a quiver now about the pretty lips, a hint of a laugh in the eyes.

“Mademoiselle,”—­he wheeled round with unexpected vehemence,—­“I should like you, to tell me exactly how old you think I am.”

“You mean it, monsieur?”

“I mean it.  Is it seventeen—­or is it sixteen?” His voice was edged with irony.