第54章

These ladies were apparently persons of high fashion;they were dressed with great splendor, and their long silken trains and furbelows were spread over the polished floor.

It was at their dresses Mademoiselle Noemie was looking, though what she was thinking of I am unable to say.

I hazard the supposition that she was saying to herself that to be able to drag such a train over a polished floor was a felicity worth any price.Her reflections, at any rate, were disturbed by the advent of Newman and his companion.

She glanced at them quickly, and then, coloring a little, rose and stood before her easel.

"I came here on purpose to see you," said Newman in his bad French, offering to shake hands.And then, like a good American, he introduced Valentin formally: "Allow me to make you acquainted with the Comte Valentin de Bellegarde."Valentin made a bow which must have seemed to Mademoiselle Noemie quite in harmony with the impressiveness of his title, but the graceful brevity of her own response made no concession to underbred surprise.

She turned to Newman, putting up her hands to her hair and smoothing its delicately-felt roughness.Then, rapidly, she turned the canvas that was on her easel over upon its face."You have not forgotten me?" she asked.

"I shall never forget you," said Newman."You may be sure of that.""Oh," said the young girl, "there are a great many different ways of remembering a person." And she looked straight at Valentin de Bellegarde, who was looking at her as a gentleman may when a "verdict" is expected of him.

"Have you painted anything for me?" said Newman.

"Have you been industrious?"

"No, I have done nothing." And taking up her palette, she began to mix her colors at hazard.

"But your father tells me you have come here constantly.""I have nowhere else to go! Here, all summer, it was cool, at least.""Being here, then," said Newman, "you might have tried something.""I told you before," she answered, softly, "that I don't know how to paint.""But you have something charming on your easel, now," said Valentin, "if you would only let me see it."She spread out her two hands, with the fingers expanded, over the back of the canvas--those hands which Newman had called pretty, and which, in spite of several paint-stains, Valentin could now admire.

"My painting is not charming," she said.

"It is the only thing about you that is not, then, mademoiselle,"quoth Valentin, gallantly.

She took up her little canvas and silently passed it to him.

He looked at it, and in a moment she said, "I am sure you are a judge.""Yes," he answered, "I am."

"You know, then, that that is very bad."

"Mon Dieu," said Valentin, shrugging his shoulders "let us distinguish.""You know that I ought not to attempt to paint," the young girl continued.

"Frankly, then, mademoiselle, I think you ought not."She began to look at the dresses of the two splendid ladies again--a point on which, having risked one conjecture, I think I may risk another.

While she was looking at the ladies she was seeing Valentin de Bellegarde.

He, at all events, was seeing her.He put down the roughly-besmeared canvas and addressed a little click with his tongue, accompanied by an elevation of the eyebrows, to Newman.

"Where have you been all these months?" asked Mademoiselle Noemie of our hero."You took those great journeys, you amused yourself well?""Oh, yes," said Newman."I amused myself well enough.""I am very glad," said Mademoiselle Noemie with extreme gentleness, and she began to dabble in her colors again.She was singularly pretty, with the look of serious sympathy that she threw into her face.

Valentin took advantage of her downcast eyes to telegraph again to his companion.He renewed his mysterious physiognomical play, making at the same time a rapid tremulous movement in the air with his fingers.

He was evidently finding Mademoiselle Noemie extremely interesting;the blue devils had departed, leaving the field clear.

"Tell me something about your travels," murmured the young girl.

"Oh, I went to Switzerland,--to Geneva and Zermatt and Zurich and all those places you know; and down to Venice, and all through Germany, and down the Rhine, and into Holland and Belgium--the regular round.

How do you say that, in French--the regular round?"Newman asked of Valentin.

Mademoiselle Nioche fixed her eyes an instant on Bellegarde, and then with a little smile, "I don't understand monsieur,"she said, "when he says so much at once.Would you be so good as to translate?""I would rather talk to you out of my own head," Valentin declared.

"No," said Newman, gravely, still in his bad French, "you must not talk to Mademoiselle Nioche, because you say discouraging things.

You ought to tell her to work, to persevere.""And we French, mademoiselle," said Valentin, "are accused of being false flatterers!""I don't want any flattery, I want only the truth.

But I know the truth."

"All I say is that I suspect there are some things that you can do better than paint," said Valentin.

"I know the truth--I know the truth," Mademoiselle Noemie repeated.

And, dipping a brush into a clot of red paint, she drew a great horizontal daub across her unfinished picture.

"What is that?" asked Newman.

Without answering, she drew another long crimson daub, in a vertical direction, down the middle of her canvas, and so, in a moment, completed the rough indication of a cross.

"It is the sign of the truth," she said at last.

The two men looked at each other, and Valentin indulged in another flash of physiognomical eloquence."You have spoiled your picture," said Newman.

"I know that very well.It was the only thing to do with it.

I had sat looking at it all day without touching it.

I had begun to hate it.It seemed to me something was going to happen.""I like it better that way than as it was before," said Valentin.

"Now it is more interesting.It tells a story.Is it for sale?""Everything I have is for sale," said Mademoiselle Noemie.

"How much is this thing?"