“Well, you see that I have drunk nothing, nothing, not a drop!  We shall see whether I shall not grow thin!”

The Duchess, furious, tried to make her swallow some mineral water, but in vain; then she exclaimed: 

“Oh, the little simpleton!  That daughter of hers will turn her head.  I beg of you, Guilleroy, prevent your wife from committing this folly.”

The Count, who was explaining to Musadieu the system of a threshing-machine invented in America, had not been listening.

“What folly, Duchess?”

“The folly of wishing to grow thin.”

The Count looked at his wife with an expression of kindly indifference.

“I never have formed the habit of opposing her,” he replied.

The Countess had risen, taking the arm of her neighbor; the Count offered his to the Duchess, and they passed into the large drawing-room, the boudoir at the end being reserved for use in the daytime.

It was a vast and well lighted room.  On the four walls the large and beautiful panels of pale blue silk, of antique pattern, framed in white and gold, took on under the light of the lamps and the chandelier a moonlight softness and brightness.  In the center of the principal one, the portrait of the Countess by Olivier Bertin seemed to inhabit, to animate the apartment.  It had a look of being at home there, mingling with the air of the salon its youthful smile, the grace of its pose, the bright charm of its golden hair.  It had become almost a custom, a sort of polite ceremony, like making the sign of the cross on entering a church, to compliment the model on the work of the painter whenever anyone stood before it.

Musadieu never failed to do this.  His opinion as a connoisseur commissioned by the State having the value of that of an official expert, he regarded it as his duty to affirm often, with conviction, the superiority of that painting.

“Indeed,” said he, “that is the most beautiful modern portrait I know.  There is prodigious life in it.”

The Comte de Guilleroy, who, through hearing this portrait continually praised, had acquired a rooted conviction that he possessed a masterpiece, approached to join him, and for a minute or two they lavished upon the portrait all the art technicalities of the day in praise of the apparent qualities of the work, and also of those that were suggested.

All eyes were lifted toward the portrait, apparently in a rapture of admiration, and Olivier Bertin, accustomed to these eulogies, to which he paid hardly more attention than to questions about his health when meeting some one in the street, nevertheless adjusted the reflector lamp placed before the portrait in order to illumine it, the servant having carelessly set it a little on one side.

Then they seated themselves, and as the Count approached the Duchess, she said to him: 

“I believe that my nephew is coming here for me, and to ask you for a cup of tea.”