And she persisted in questioning him, vibrating with curiosity, her eyes fixed upon him, her ear eager for those things that are disturbing to know but charming to hear.

Sometimes when he approached her to alter a pose he would seize her hand and try to kiss it.  With a swift movement she would draw away her fingers from his lips, saying, with a slight frown: 

“Come, come—­work!”

He would begin his work again, but within five minutes she would ask some adroit question that led him back to the sole topic that interested them.

By this time she began to feel some fear deep in her heart.  She longed to be loved—­but not too much!  Sure of not being led away, she yet feared to allow him to venture too far, thereby losing him, since then she would be compelled to drive him to despair after seeming to encourage him.  Yet, should it become necessary to renounce this tender and delicate friendship, this stream of pleasant converse which rippled along bearing nuggets of love like a river whose sand is full of gold, it would cause her great sorrow—­a grief that would be heart-breaking.

When she set out from her own home to go to the painter’s studio, a wave of joy, warm and penetrating, overflowed her spirit, making it light and happy.  As she laid her hand on Olivier’s bell, her breast throbbed with impatience, and the stair-carpet seemed the softest her feet ever had pressed.  But Bertin became gloomy, a little nervous, often irritable.  He had his moments of impatience, soon repressed, but frequently recurring.

One day, when she had just entered, he sat down beside her instead of beginning to paint, saying: 

“Madame, you can no longer ignore the fact that what I have said is not a jest, and that I love you madly.”

Troubled by this beginning and seeing that the dreaded crisis had arrived, she tried to stop him, but he listened to her no longer.  Emotion overflowed his heart, and she must hear him, pale, trembling, and anxious as she listened.  He spoke a long time, demanding nothing, tenderly, sadly, with despairing resignation; and she allowed him to take her hands, which he kept in his.  He was kneeling before her without her taking any notice of his attitude, and with a far-away look upon his face he begged her not to work him any harm.  What harm?  She did not understand nor try to understand, overcome by the cruel grief of seeing him suffer, yet that grief was almost happiness.  Suddenly she saw tears in his eyes and was so deeply moved that she exclaimed:  “Oh!”—­ready to embrace him as one embraces a crying child.  He repeated in a very soft tone:  “There, there!  I suffer too much;” then, suddenly, won by his sorrow, by the contagion of tears, she sobbed, her nerves quivering, her arms trembling, ready to open.

When she felt herself suddenly clasped in his embrace and kissed passionately on the lips, she wished to cry out, to struggle, to repulse him; but she judged herself lost, for she consented while resisting, she yielded even while she struggled, pressing him to her as she cried:  “No, no, I will not!”