“Oh, little Sainte Nicette!” he said. “Why do you let me talk to you like this? Because you are a saint? Then I will not take a base advantage of your condition. But shall I finish the portrait, Madonna? I have been brought face to face in Paris with the divine suffering of mothers. I have discovered the secret of the eyes. Shall I finish the portrait, Nicette?”
She shook her head.
“But think how you could instruct me, girl! The lineaments—the very form and expression; for you have seen them!”
“Hush!” she exclaimed, in a terrified whisper. “Oh, monsieur, hush! It is blasphemy; it is terrible. I to pose for the divinity revealed to me! Surely, you are mad!”
He leaned down to her as he sat.
“Nicette,” he murmured, “there is an old confidence between us, you know, and I recall your fine gift of imagination. Confess that it is all an invention.”
“That what is an invention?”
“Do you not know? This vision in the woods, then.”
She sprang to her feet. A line of red came across her forehead.
“You mock me!” she cried. “I might have known that you would; but it is none the less hateful and cruel. Believe or not as you will.”