“Excuse me,” said he; “I must put this picture to dry.”  And as the portrait stood on a moveable easel, he wheeled it into the adjoining room.

“And now,” said Gaston, “I want you to come and breakfast with us to celebrate Zora’s happy release.”

“I am much obliged to you, but it is impossible.  I must get on with my work.”

“Yes, yes; work is an excellent thing, but just now you must go and dress.”

“I assure you that it is quite out of the question.  I cannot leave the studio yet.”

Gaston paused for a moment in deep thought.

“I have it,” said he triumphantly.  “You will not come to breakfast; then breakfast shall come to you.  I am off to order it.”

Andre ran after him, but Gaston was too quick, and he returned to the studio in anything but an amiable temper.  Zora noticed his evident annoyance.

“He always goes on in this absurd way,” said she, with a shrug of her pretty shoulders, “and thinks himself so clever and witty, bah!”

Her tone disclosed such contempt for Gaston that Andre looked at her in perplexed surprise.

“What do you look so astonished at?  It is easy to see you do not know much of him.  All his friends are just like him; if you listen to them for half an hour at a stretch, you get regularly sick.  When I think of the terrible evenings that I have spent in their company, I feel ready to die with yawning;” and as she spoke, she suited the action to the word.  “Ah! if he really loved me!” added she.

“Love you!  Why, he adores you.”

Zora made a little gesture of contempt which Toto Chupin might have envied.

“Do you think so?” said she.  “Do you know what it is he loves in me?  When people pass me they cry out, ‘Isn’t she good style?’ and then the idiot is as pleased as Punch; but if I had on a cotton gown, he would think nothing of me.”

Rose had evidently learned a good ideal, as her beauty had never been so radiant.  She was one glow of health and strength.

“Then my name was not good enough for him,” she went on.  “His aristocratic lips could not bring themselves to utter such a common name as Rose, so he christened me Zora, a regular puppy dog’s name.  He has plenty of money, but money is not everything after all.  Paul had no money, and yet I loved him a thousand times better.  On my word, I have almost forgotten how to laugh, and yet I used to be as merry as the day was long.”

“Why did you leave Paul then?”

“Well, you see, I wanted to experience what a woman feels when she has a Cashmere shawl on, so one fine morning I took wing.  But there, who knows?  Paul would very likely have left me one day.  There was some one who was doing his best to separate us, an old blackguard called Tantaine, who lived in the same house.”

“Ah!” answered he cautiously.  “What interest could he have had in separating you?”

“I don’t know,” answered the girl, assuming a serious air; “but I am sure he was trying it on.  A fellow doesn’t hand over banknotes for nothing, and I saw him give one for five hundred francs to Paul; and more than that, he promised him that he should make a great fortune through a friend of his called Mascarin.”