He shook his fist at her from the quay where he stood, and watched her and her party step into the boat from the pier.

“She thinks little enough of the Lynxville Prize Fund when she wants an outing,” he said to himself, scornfully.

After fretting a little over his wasted afternoon, he forgot all about her, and set to work with other models.  Then he left Paris for the summer.

* * * * *

A few hours after his return, early in the fall, there came a knock at his door.  He had been admiring Cora’s portrait, which to his fresh eye looked exceptionally good.

Miss Snell, with eyes red and tearful, stood on his door-mat when he answered the tap.

“Poor dear Cora,” she said, had received a notice from the Lynxville committee that they did not consider her work sufficiently promising to continue the fund another year.

“She will have to go home,” sobbed Miss Snell, but said:  “I am forced to admit that Cora has wasted a good deal of time this summer.  She is so young, and needs a little distraction, now and then,” and she appealed to the Painter for confirmation of this undoubted fact.

He was absent-minded, but assented to all she said.  In his heart he thought it a fortunate thing that the prize fund should be withdrawn.  One female art student the less:  he grew pleased with the idea.  Cora had ceased to interest him as an individual, and he considered her only as one of an obnoxious class.

“I thought you ought to be the first to know about it,” said Miss Snell, confidentially, “because you might have some plan for keeping her over here.”  Miss Snell looked unutterable things that she did not dare to put into words.

She made the Painter feel uncomfortable, she looked so knowing, and he became loud in his advice to send Cora home at once.

“Pack her off,” he cried.  “She is wasting time and money by staying.  She never had a particle of talent, and the sooner she goes back to Lynxville the better.”

Miss Snell shrank from his vehemence, and wished she had not insisted upon coming to consult him.  She had assured Cora that the merest hint would bring matters to a crisis.  Cora would imagine that she had bungled matters terribly, and she was mortified at the thought of returning with the news of a repulse.

As soon as she had gone, the Painter felt sorry he had been so hasty.  He had bundled her unceremoniously out of the studio, pleading important work.

He called twice in the rue Notre Dame des Champs, but the porter would never let him pass her lodge, and he at last realized that she had been given orders to that effect.  A judicious tip extracted from her the fact that Miss Price expected to leave for America the following Saturday, and, armed with an immense bouquet, he betook himself to the St. Lazare station at the hour for the departure of the Havre express.