The Duchess explained the meeting of her nephew and the departure of Musadieu, who had been carried off by the Minister of the Fine Arts, and Bertin, at the thought that this insipidly good-looking Marquis might marry Annette, that he had come there only to see her, and that he regarded her already as destined to share his bed, unnerved and revolted him, as if some one had ignored his own rights—­sacred and mysterious rights.

As soon as they were at table, the Marquis, who sat beside the young girl, occupied himself in talking to her with the devoted air of a man authorized to pay his addresses.

He assumed a curious manner, which seemed to the painter bold and searching; his smiles were satisfied and almost tender, his gallantry was familiar and officious.  In manner and word appeared already something of decision, as if he were about to announce that he had won the prize.

The Duchess and the Countess seemed to protect and approve this attitude of a pretender, and exchanged glances of complicity.

As soon as the luncheon was finished the party returned to the Exposition.  There was such a dense crowd in the galleries, it seemed impossible to penetrate it.  An odor of perspiring humanity, a stale smell of old gowns and coats, made an atmosphere at once heavy and sickening.  No one looked at the pictures any more, but at faces and toilets, seeking out well-known persons; and at times came a great jostling of the crowd as it was forced to give way before the high double ladder of the varnishers, who cried:  “Make way, Messieurs!  Make way, Mesdames!”

At the end of ten minutes, the Countess and Olivier found themselves separated from the others.  He wished to find them immediately, but, leaning upon him, the Countess said:  “Are we not very well off as it is?  Let them go, since it is quite natural that we should lose sight of them; we will meet them again in the buffet at four o’clock.”

“That is true,” he replied.

But he was absorbed by the idea that the Marquis was accompanying Annette and continuing his attempts to please her by his fatuous and affected gallantry.

“You love me always, then?” murmured the Countess.

“Yes, certainly,” he replied, with a preoccupied air, trying to catch a glimpse of the Marquis’s gray hat over the heads of the crowd.

Feeling that he was abstracted, and wishing to lead him back to her own train of thought, the Countess continued: 

“If you only knew how I adore your picture of this year!  It is certainly your chef-d’oeuvre.”

He smiled, suddenly, forgetting the young people in remembering his anxiety of the morning.

“Do you really think so?” he asked.

“Yes, I prefer it above all others.”

With artful wheedling, she crowned him anew, having known well for a long time that nothing has a stronger effect on an artist than tender and continuous flattery.  Captivated, reanimated, cheered by her sweet words, he began again to chat gaily, seeing and hearing only her in that tumultuous throng.