“Go to Asia, then,” said Porbus hastily, fancying he saw some hesitation in the old man’s eye.

Porbus made a few steps towards the door of the room.  At this moment Gillette and Nicolas Poussin reached the entrance of the house.  As the young girl was about to enter, she dropped the arm of her lover and shrank back as if overcome by a presentiment.  “What am I doing here?” she said to Poussin, in a deep voice, looking at him fixedly.

“Gillette, I leave you mistress of your actions; I will obey your will.  You are my conscience, my glory.  Come home; I shall be happy, perhaps, if you, yourself—­”

“Have I a self when you speak thus to me?  Oh, no!  I am but a child.  Come,” she continued, seeming to make a violent effort.  “If our love perishes, if I put into my heart a long regret, thy fame shall be the guerdon of my obedience to thy will.  Let us enter.  I may yet live again,—­a memory on thy palette.”

Opening the door of the house the two lovers met Porbus coming out.  Astonished at the beauty of the young girl, whose eyes were still wet with tears, he caught her all trembling by the hand and led her to the old master.

“There!” he cried; “is she not worth all the masterpieces in the world?”

Frenhofer quivered.  Gillette stood before him in the ingenuous, simple attitude of a young Georgian, innocent and timid, captured by brigands and offered to a slave-merchant.  A modest blush suffused her cheeks, her eyes were lowered, her hands hung at her sides, strength seemed to abandon her, and her tears protested against the violence done to her purity.  Poussin cursed himself, and repented of his folly in bringing this treasure from their peaceful garret.  Once more he became a lover rather than an artist; scruples convulsed his heart as he saw the eye of the old painter regain its youth and, with the artist’s habit, disrobe as it were the beauteous form of the young girl.  He was seized with the jealous frenzy of a true lover.

“Gillette!” he cried; “let us go.”

At this cry, with its accent of love, his mistress raised her eyes joyfully and looked at him; then she ran into his arms.

“Ah! you love me still?” she whispered, bursting into tears.

Though she had had strength to hide her suffering, she had none to hide her joy.

“Let me have her for one moment,” exclaimed the old master, “and you shall compare her with my Catherine.  Yes, yes; I consent!”

There was love in the cry of Frenhofer as in that of Poussin, mingled with jealous coquetry on behalf of his semblance of a woman; he seemed to revel in the triumph which the beauty of his virgin was about to win over the beauty of the living woman.

“Do not let him retract,” cried Porbus, striking Poussin on the shoulder.  “The fruits of love wither in a day; those of art are immortal.”

“Can it be,” said Gillette, looking steadily at Poussin and at Porbus, “that I am nothing more than a woman to him?”