He roughly folded up the screen and sent it flying into a corner.  She had no doubt left all in disorder.  And when he found that everything was in its proper place—­basin, towel, and soap—­he flew into a rage because she had not made the bed.  With a great deal of fuss he began to make it himself, lifting the mattress in his arms, banging the pillow about with his fists, and feeling oppressed by the pure scent of youth that rose from everything.  Then he had a good wash to cool himself, and in the damp towel he found the same virgin fragrance, which seemed to spread through the studio.  Swearing the while, he drank his chocolate from the saucepan, so excited, so eager to set to work, as to swallow large mouthfuls of bread without taking breath.

‘Why, it’s enough to kill one here,’ he suddenly exclaimed.  ’It must be this confounded heat that’s making me ill.’

After all, the sun had shifted, and it was far less hot.  But he opened a small window on a level with the roof, and inhaled, with an air of profound relief, the whiff of warm air that entered.  Then he took up his sketch of Christine’s head and for a long while he lingered looking at it.

II

IT had struck twelve, and Claude was working at his picture when there was a loud, familiar knock at the door.  With an instinctive yet involuntary impulse, the artist slipped the sketch of Christine’s head, by the aid of which he was remodelling the principal figure of his picture, into a portfolio.  After which he decided to open the door.

‘You, Pierre!’ he exclaimed, ‘already!’

Pierre Sandoz, a friend of his boyhood, was about twenty-two, very dark, with a round and determined head, a square nose, and gentle eyes, set in energetic features, girt round with a sprouting beard.

‘I breakfasted earlier than usual,’ he answered, ’in order to give you a long sitting.  The devil! you are getting on with it.’

He had stationed himself in front of the picture, and he added almost immediately:  ’Hallo! you have altered the character of your woman’s features!’

Then came a long pause; they both kept staring at the canvas.  It measured about sixteen feet by ten, and was entirely painted over, though little of the work had gone beyond the roughing-out.  This roughing-out, hastily dashed off, was superb in its violence and ardent vitality of colour.  A flood of sunlight streamed into a forest clearing, with thick walls of verdure; to the left, stretched a dark glade with a small luminous speck in the far distance.  On the grass, amidst all the summer vegetation, lay a nude woman with one arm supporting her head, and though her eyes were closed she smiled amidst the golden shower that fell around her.  In the background, two other women, one fair, and the other dark, wrestled playfully, setting light flesh tints amidst all the green leaves.  And, as the painter had wanted something dark by way of contrast in the foreground, he had contented himself with seating there a gentleman, dressed in a black velveteen jacket.  This gentleman had his back turned and the only part of his flesh that one saw was his left hand, with which he was supporting himself on the grass.