In the afternoon of the second day, Benvenuto, having given the last touch to his statue, thanked Catherine for her complaisance, and gave her four gold crowns; but Catherine let them fall to the floor. The poor child's dream was ended; from that moment she must return to her former condition, and that condition had become hateful to her since the day that she entered the master's studio. Benvenuto, who had no suspicion of what was taking place in the girl's heart, picked up the four crowns, handed them to her once more, pressing her hand as he did so, and said to her that, if he ever could be of service to her, she must apply to no one but him. Then he passed into the apartment where his apprentices were at work, seeking Ascanio, to whom he wished to exhibit his completed statue.
Catherine kissed the tools the master had used, one after another, and went away, weeping.
The next morning Catherine appeared at the studio while Benvenuto was alone, and when he, astonished to see her again, asked her why she had come, she knelt at his feet and asked him if he did not need a servant.
Benvenuto had an artist's heart, quick to detect feeling in another. He divined what was taking place in the poor child's heart, and raised her from the floor, kissing her upon the forehead as he did so.
From that moment Catherine was a part of the studio, which, as we have said, she brightened and made cheerful with her childish ways, and enlivened by her unceasing activity. She had become almost indispensable to everybody, above all to Benvenuto. She it was who superintended and managed everything, scolding and caressing Ruperta, who was dismayed at her first appearance in the household, but ended by loving her as everybody else did.
The Erigone lost nothing by this arrangement. Having the model always at hand, Benvenuto had retouched and perfected it with greater care than he had ever before bestowed upon one of his statues, and had then carried it to François I., whose admiration knew no bounds, and who ordered him to execute it in silver. He subsequently conversed for a long time with the goldsmith, asked him if he was pleased with his studio, where it was situated, and whether there were beautiful things to be seen there; and when he dismissed him, he determined in his own mind to take him by surprise some morning, but said nothing to him of his intention.
Thus did matters stand when this history opens,—Benvenuto working, Catherine singing, Ascanio dreaming, and Pagolo praying.
On the day following that on which Ascanio returned home so late, thanks to his excursion in the neighborhood of the Hôtel de Nesle, there was a loud knocking at the street door. Dame Ruperta at once rose to answer the summons, but Scozzone (the reader will remember that this was the name given to Catherine by Benvenuto) was already out of the room.
A moment later they heard her voice, half joyous, half terrified, crying,—
"O mon Dieu! master! mon Dieu! it is the king! The king in person has come to see your studio!"