"Is monsieur by chance painting the great picture which shall put him between Velasquez and Caran d'Ache on the last day?"
"I am painting nothing," said Vernon. "And why is the prettiest model in Paris not at work?"
"I was in lateness but a little quarter of an hour, Monsieur. And behold me—chucked."
"It wasn't for the first time, then?"
"A nothing one or two days last week. Monsieur had better begin to paint that chef d'oeuvre—to-day even. It isn't often that the prettiest model in Paris is free to sit at a moment's notice."
"But," said Vernon, "I haven't an idea for a picture even. It is too hot for ideas. I'm going into the country at the end of the month, to do landscape."
"To paint a picture it is then absolutely necessary to have an idea?"
"An idea—or a commission."
"There is always something that lacks! With me it is the technique that is to seek; with you the ideas! Otherwise we should both be masters. For you have technique both hands full; I have ideas, me."
"Tell me some of them," said Vernon, strolling along by her side. It was not his habit to stroll along beside models. But to-day he was fretted and chafed by long waiting for that answer to his letter. Anything seemed better than the empty studio where one waited.