She raised her head proudly; and as she glanced at Frenhofer with flashing eyes she saw her lover gazing once more at the picture he had formerly taken for a Giorgione.

“Ah!” she cried, “let us go in; he never looked at me like that!”

“Old man!” said Poussin, roused from his meditation by Gillette’s voice, “see this sword.  I will plunge it into your heart at the first cry of that young girl.  I will set fire to your house, and no one shall escape from it.  Do you understand me?”

His look was gloomy and the tones of his voice were terrible.  His attitude, and above all the gesture with which he laid his hand upon the weapon, comforted the poor girl, who half forgave him for thus sacrificing her to his art and to his hopes of a glorious future.

Porbus and Poussin remained outside the closed door of the atelier, looking at one another in silence.  At first the painter of the Egyptian Mary uttered a few exclamations:  “Ah, she unclothes herself!” —­“He tells her to stand in the light!”—­“He compares them!” but he grew silent as he watched the mournful face of the young man; for though old painters have none of such petty scruples in presence of their art, yet they admire them in others, when they are fresh and pleasing.  The young man held his hand on his sword, and his ear seemed glued to the panel of the door.  Both men, standing darkly in the shadow, looked like conspirators waiting the hour to strike a tyrant.

“Come in! come in!” cried the old man, beaming with happiness.  “My work is perfect; I can show it now with pride.  Never shall painter, brushes, colors, canvas, light, produce the rival of Catherine Lescaut, the Beautiful Nut-girl.”

Porbus and Poussin, seized with wild curiosity, rushed into the middle of a vast atelier filled with dust, where everything lay in disorder, and where they saw a few paintings hanging here and there upon the walls.  They stopped before the figure of a woman, life-sized and half nude, which filled them with eager admiration.

“Do not look at that,” said Frenhofer, “it is only a daub which I made to study a pose; it is worth nothing.  Those are my errors,” he added, waving his hand towards the enchanting compositions on the walls around them.

At these words Porbus and Poussin, amazed at the disdain which the master showed for such marvels of art, looked about them for the secret treasure, but could see it nowhere.

“There it is!” said the old man, whose hair fell in disorder about his face, which was scarlet with supernatural excitement.  His eyes sparkled, and his breast heaved like that of a young man beside himself with love.