“Not too far, dear friend—­remember Berenice.”

“I remember no one but you,” he impatiently answered; and relaxing his hold, he moved so that the moonlight shone on her face.  She was pale.  In her eyes there were fright and hope, decision and delight.  He admired her more than ever.

“Let me paint you, Elaine, these next few weeks.  It will be a surprise for Mineur.  And I shall have something to cherish.  Never mind about Berenice.  She is a child.  I am a middle-aged man.  Between us is the wall—­of the years.  Never should it be climbed.  While you—­”

“Be careful—­Hubert.  Theophile is your friend.”

“He is not.  I never cared for him.  He dragged me out here after he had been drinking too much, and when I saw you I could not stay away.  Hear me—­I insist!  Berenice is nice, but the wall is too high for her to climb; it might prove a—­”

“How do you know the wall is too steep for Berenice?” the girl cried as she scaled the top with apish agility, where, after a few mocking steps in the moonlight, she sank down breathless beside Hubert, and laughed so loudly that her mother was fearful of hysteria.

“Berenice!  Berenice!” she exclaimed.

“Oh, Berenice is all right, mamma.  Master Hubert, I want you to paint my portrait before papa returns—­that’s to be in four weeks, isn’t it?” The elder pair regarded her disconcertedly.

“Oh, you needn’t look so dismal.  I’ll not tell tales out of school.  Hubert and mamma flirting!  What a glorious jest!  Isn’t life a jest, Hubert?  Let’s make a bargain!  If you paint mamma, you paint me, also.  Then—­you see—­papa will not be jealous, and—­and—­” She was near tears her mother felt, and she leaned over Hubert and took the girl’s hand.  She grazed the long fingers of the painter, who at once caught both feminine hands in his.

“Now I have you both,” he boasted, and was shocked by a vicious tap on the cheek—­Berenice in rage pulled her left hand free.  Silence ensued.  Hubert prudently began to roll another cigarette, and Madame Mineur retreated out of the moonlight, while Berenice turned her back and soon began to hum.  The artist spoke first: 

“See here, you silly Berenice, turn around!  I want to talk to you like a Dutch uncle—­as we say in the United States.  Of course I’ll paint you.  But I begin with your mother.  And if you wish me to like you better than ever, don’t say such things as you did.  It hurts your—­mother.”  His voice dropped into its deepest bass.  She faced him, and he saw the glitter of wet eyelashes.  She was charming, with her hair in disorder, her eyes two burning points of fire.

“I beg your pardon, mamma; I beg your pardon, Hubert.  I’ll be good the rest of this evening.  Isn’t it lovely?” She sniffed in the breeze with dilating nostrils, and the wild look of her set him to wondering how such a gentle mother could have such a gypsy daughter.  Perhaps it was the father—­yes, the old man had been an Apache in his youth according to the slang of the studios.