“Oh!  I have often seen you following us,” said Nais, with her clever little air.

How little we know children, and their turn for observation!  As for my husband, it seemed to me that he ought to have pricked up his ears at this tale of the daring manner in which his wife had been used as a model.  Monsieur de l’Estorade is certainly no fool; in all social matters he has the highest sense of conventional propriety, and as for jealousy, I think if I gave him the slightest occasion he would show himself ridiculously jealous.  But now, the sight of his “beautiful Renee,” as he calls me, done into white marble in the form of a saint, had evidently cast him into a state of admiring ecstasy.  He, with Nais, were taking an inventory to prove the fidelity of the likeness —­yes, it was really my attitude, really my eyes, really my mouth, really those two little dimples in my cheeks!

I felt it my duty to take up the role that Monsieur de l’Estorade laid aside, so I said, very gravely, to the presuming artist:—­

“Do you not think, monsieur, that to appropriate without permission, or—­not to mince my words—­steal a person’s likeness, may seem a very strange proceeding?”

“For that reason, madame,” he replied, in a respectful tone, “I was fully determined to abide by your wishes in the matter.  Although my statue is fated to be buried in the oratory of a distant convent, I should not have sent it to its destination without obtaining your permission to do so.  I could have known your name whenever I wished; I already knew your address; and I intended, when the time came, to confess the liberty I had taken, and ask you to visit my studio.  I should then have said what I say now:  if the likeness displeases you I can, with a few strokes of my chisel, so change it as to make it unrecognizable.”

My husband, who apparently thought the likeness not sufficiently close, turned, at this moment, to Monsieur Dorlange, and said, with a delighted air:—­

“Do you not think, monsieur, that Madame de l’Estorade’s nose is rather more delicate than you have made it?”

All this unexpectedness so upset me that I felt unfitted to intervene on behalf of Monsieur Marie-Gaston, and I should, I believe, have pleaded his cause very ill if Monsieur Dorlange had not stopped me at the first words I said about it.

“I know, madame,” he said, “all that you can possibly tell me about my unfaithful friend.  I do not forgive, but I forget my wrong.  Things having so come about that I have nearly lost my life for his sake, it would certainly be very illogical to keep a grudge against him.  Still, as regards that mausoleum at Ville d’Avray, nothing would induce me to undertake it.  I have already mentioned to Monsieur de l’Estorade one hindrance that is daily growing more imperative; but besides that, I think it a great pity that Marie-Gaston should thus ruminate on his grief; and I have written to tell him so.  He ought to be more of a man, and find in study and in work the consolations we can always find there.”