“Is all going well with your husband?”

“Very well; he must be making a speech in the House at this very moment.”

“Ah!  On what, pray?”

“Oh—­no doubt on beets or on rape-seed oil, as usual!”

Her husband, the Comte de Guilleroy, deputy from the Eure, made a special study of all questions of agricultural interest.

Perceiving in one corner a sketch that she did not recognize, the lady walked across the studio, asking, “What is that?”

“A pastel that I have just begun—­the portrait of the Princesse de Ponteve.”

“You know,” said the lady gravely, “that if you go back to painting portraits of women I shall close your studio.  I know only too well to what that sort of thing leads!”

“Oh, but I do not make twice a portrait of Any!” was the answer.

“I hope not, indeed!”

She examined the newly begun pastel sketch with the air of a woman that understands the technic of art.  She stepped back, advanced, made a shade of her hand, sought the place where the best light fell on the sketch, and finally expressed her satisfaction.

“It is very good.  You succeed admirably with pastel work.”

“Do you think so?” murmured the flattered artist.

“Yes; it is a most delicate art, needing great distinction of style.  It cannot be handled by masons in the art of painting.”

For twelve years the Countess had encouraged the painter’s leaning toward the distinguished in art, opposing his occasional return to the simplicity of realism; and, in consideration of the demands of fashionable modern elegance, she had tenderly urged him toward an ideal of grace that was slightly affected and artificial.

“What is the Princess like?” she asked.

He was compelled to give her all sorts of details—­those minute details in which the jealous and subtle curiosity of women delights, passing from remarks upon her toilet to criticisms of her intelligence.

Suddenly she inquired:  “Does she flirt with you?”

He laughed, and declared that she did not.

Then, putting both hands on the shoulders of the painter, the Countess gazed fixedly at him.  The ardor of her questioning look caused a quiver in the pupils of her blue eyes, flecked with almost imperceptible black points, like tiny ink-spots.

Again she murmured:  “Truly, now, she is not a flirt?”

“No, indeed, I assure you!”

“Well, I am quite reassured on another account,” said the Countess.  “You never will love anyone but me now.  It is all over for the others.  It is too late, my poor dear!”

The painter experienced that slight painful emotion which touches the heart of middle-aged men when some one mentions their age; and he murmured:  “To-day and to-morrow, as yesterday, there never has been in my life, and never will be, anyone but you, Any.”

She took him by the arm, and turning again toward the divan made him sit beside her.