“All I say is that I suspect there are some things that you can do better than paint,” said Valentin.

“I know the truth—­I know the truth,” Mademoiselle Noemie repeated.  And, dipping a brush into a clot of red paint, she drew a great horizontal daub across her unfinished picture.

“What is that?” asked Newman.

Without answering, she drew another long crimson daub, in a vertical direction, down the middle of her canvas, and so, in a moment, completed the rough indication of a cross.  “It is the sign of the truth,” she said at last.

The two men looked at each other, and Valentin indulged in another flash of physiognomical eloquence.  “You have spoiled your picture,” said Newman.

“I know that very well.  It was the only thing to do with it.  I had sat looking at it all day without touching it.  I had begun to hate it.  It seemed to me something was going to happen.”

“I like it better that way than as it was before,” said Valentin.  “Now it is more interesting.  It tells a story.  Is it for sale?”

“Everything I have is for sale,” said Mademoiselle Noemie.

“How much is this thing?”

“Ten thousand francs,” said the young girl, without a smile.

“Everything that Mademoiselle Nioche may do at present is mine in advance,” said Newman.  “It makes part of an order I gave her some months ago.  So you can’t have this.”

“Monsieur will lose nothing by it,” said the young girl, looking at Valentin.  And she began to put up her utensils.

“I shall have gained a charming memory,” said Valentin.  “You are going away? your day is over?”

“My father is coming to fetch me,” said Mademoiselle Noemie.

She had hardly spoken when, through the door behind her, which opens on one of the great white stone staircases of the Louvre, M. Nioche made his appearance.  He came in with his usual even, patient shuffle, and he made a low salute to the two gentlemen who were standing before his daughter’s easel.  Newman shook his hands with muscular friendliness, and Valentin returned his greeting with extreme deference.  While the old man stood waiting for Noemie to make a parcel of her implements, he let his mild, oblique gaze hover toward Bellegarde, who was watching Mademoiselle Noemie put on her bonnet and mantle.  Valentin was at no pains to disguise his scrutiny.  He looked at a pretty girl as he would have listened to a piece of music.  Attention, in each case, was simple good manners.  M. Nioche at last took his daughter’s paint-box in one hand and the bedaubed canvas, after giving it a solemn, puzzled stare, in the other, and led the way to the door.  Mademoiselle Noemie made the young men the salute of a duchess, and followed her father.

“Well,” said Newman, “what do you think of her?”

“She is very remarkable.  Diable, diable, diable!” repeated M. de Bellegarde, reflectively; “she is very remarkable.”