These things were the occasion of terrible arguments, of discussions from which the father came out beaten, conquered by his daughter’s logic, astonished at the progress made by the young, while the old, who have opened the way for them, remain motionless at the point from which they started.  When she was working for him, Felicia would yield more easily; but, where her own sculpture was concerned she was found to be intractable.  Thus the Joueur de Boules, her first exhibited work, which obtained so great a success at the Salon of 1862, was the subject of violent scenes between the two artists, of contradictions so strong, that Jenkins had to intervene and help to secure the safety of the plaster-cast which Ruys had threatened to destroy.

Apart from such little dramas, which in no way affected the tenderness of their hearts, these two beings adored each other with the presentiment and, gradually, the cruel certitude of an approaching separation, when suddenly there occurred in Felicia’s life a horrible event.  One day, Jenkins had taken her to dine at his house, as often happened.  Mme. Jenkins was away on a couple of days’ visit, as also her son; but the doctor’s age, his semi-paternal intimacy, allowed him to have with him, even in his wife’s absence, this young girl whose fifteen years, the fifteen years of an Eastern Jewess glorious in her precocious beauty, left her still near childhood.

The dinner was very gay, and Jenkins pleasant and cordial as usual.  Afterwards they went into the doctor’s study, and suddenly, on the couch, in the middle of an intimate and quite friendly conversation about her father, his health, their work together, Felicia felt as it were the chill of a gulf between herself and this man, then the brutal grasp of a faun.  She beheld an unknown Jenkins, wild-looking, stammering with a besotted laugh and outraging hands.  In the surprise, the unexpectedness of this bestial attack, any other than Felicia—­a child of her own age, really innocent, would have been lost.  As for her, poor little thing! what saved her was her knowledge.  She had heard so many stories of this kind of thing at her father’s table! and then art, and the life of the studio—­She was not an ingenue.  In a moment she understood the object of this grasp, struggled, sprang up, then, not being strong enough, cried out.  He was afraid, released his hold, and suddenly she found herself standing up, free, with the man on his knees weeping and begging forgiveness.  He had yielded to a fit of madness.  She was so beautiful; he loved her so much.  For months he had been struggling.  But now it was over, never again, oh, never again!  Not even would he so much as touch the hem of her dress.  She made no reply, trembled, put her hair and her clothes straight again with the fingers of a woman demented.  To go home—­she wished to go home instantly, quite alone.  He sent a servant with her; and, quite low, as she was getting into the carriage, whispered: