Strong as Death | Page 3

the modiste knows it, having all his life employed his
artist's taste and his athlete's muscles in depicting with slender brush
changing and delicate fashions, in revealing feminine grace enclosed
within a prison of velvet and silk, or hidden by snowy laces. He
finished his scrutiny by declaring: "It is a great success, and it becomes
you perfectly!"
The lady allowed herself to be admired, quite content to be pretty and
to please him.
No longer in her first youth, but still beautiful, not very tall, somewhat
plump, but with that freshness which lends to a woman of forty an
appearance of having only just reached full maturity, she seemed like
one of those roses that flourish for an indefinite time up to the moment
when, in too full a bloom, they fall in an hour.

Beneath her blonde hair she possessed the shrewdness to preserve all
the alert and youthful grace of those Parisian women who never grow
old; who carry within themselves a surprising vital force, an
indomitable power of resistance, and who remain for twenty years
triumphant and indestructible, careful above all things of their bodies
and ever watchful of their health.
She raised her veil and murmured:
"Well, you do not kiss me!"
"I have been smoking."
"Pooh!" said the lady. Then, holding up her face, she added, "So much
the worse!"
Their lips met.
He took her parasol and divested her of her spring jacket with the
prompt, swift movement indicating familiarity with this service. As she
seated herself on the divan, he asked with an air of interest:
"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.
"Of what were you thinking?" she asked.
"I am looking for a subject to paint."
"What, pray?"
"I don't know, you see, since I am still seeking it."
"What have you been doing lately?"
He was obliged to tell her of all the visits he had received, about all the
dinners and soirees he had attended, and