Meanwhile, our guide was peering with quick, excited gaze, through the thick foliage of the park; his fine black eyes were sweeping the parterre and terrace.
"Ah-h!" his rich voice cried out, mockingly; and he stopped, suddenly, to plant his cane in the ground with mock fierceness.
"Tiens, Monsieur le Curé!" cried Renard, from behind a tree, in a beautiful voice. It was a voice that matched with his well-acted surprise, when he appeared, confronting us, on the other side of the tree-trunk.
The curé opened his arms.
"Ah, mon enfant, viens, viens! how good it is to see thee once again!"
They were in each other's arms. The curé was pressing his lips to Renard's cheek, in hearty French fashion. The priest, however, administered his reproof before he released him. Renard's broad shoulders received a series of pats, which turned to blows, dealt by the curé's herculean hand.
"Why didn't you let me know you were here, yesterday, Hein? Answer me that. How goes the picture? Is it set up yet? You see, mesdames," turning with a reddened cheek and gleaming eyes, "it is thus I punish him—for he has no heart, no sensibilities—he only understands severities! And he defrauded me yesterday, he cheated me. I didn't even know of his being here till he had gone. And the picture, where is it?"
It was on an easel, sunning itself beneath the park trees. The old priest clattered along the gravelly walk, to take a look at it.
"Tiens—it grows—the figures begin to move—they are almost alive. There should be a trifle more shadow under the chin, what do you think?"
Henri raised his chin. Henri had undergone the process of transformation in our absence. He was now M. le Marquis de Pompadour—under the heart-shaped arch of the great trees, he was standing, resplendent in laces, in glistening satins, leaning on a rusty, dull-jewelled sword. Renard had mounted his palette; he was dipping already into the mounds of color that dotted the palette-board, with his long brushes. On the canvas, in colors laid on by the touch of genius, this archway beneath which we were standing reared itself aloft; the park trees were as tall and noble, transfixed in their image of immutable calm, on that strip of linen, as they towered now above us; even the yellow cloud of the laburnum blossoms made the sunshine of the shaded grass, as it did here, where else no spot of sun might enter, so dense was the night of shade. The life of another day and time lived, however, beneath that shade; Charm and the curé, as they drooped over the canvas, confronted a graceful, attenuated courtier, sickening in a languor of adoration, and a sprightly coquette, whose porcelain beauty was as finished as the feathery edges of her lacy sleeves.