"Have you any more—old or otherwise?"
Suzette said demurely that she did not owe a sou in the world, but was able to recall thirty francs in the course of the afternoon, and assured him, truly, that this was the last.
Still, she lacked economy. They went to the same cremery, but her meals cost one half more than his. She never objected to a ride in a voiture; she liked to go to the balls, but walked very soberly upon his arm, recognizing nobody, and exacting the same behavior from Ralph. Let him look at an unusually pretty girl, through a shop-window, upon his peril! If a letter came for him signed Lizzie, or Annie, or Mary, she took the dictionary and tried to interpret it, and in the end called him a vilain and wept.
Toward the letters signed "Lizzie" she conceived a deep antipathy. With a woman's instinct she discerned that "Lizzie" was more to Ralph than any other correspondent. A single letter satisfied her of this; and when he was reading it, for the second time, she snatched it from his hand and flung it fiercely upon the floor. Ralph's eyes blazed menace and her own cowered.
"Take up that letter, Suzette!"
"I won't!"
"Take it up, I say! I command! instantly!" He had risen to his feet, and was the master now. She stooped, with pale jealousy lying whitely in her temples, and gave it to him meekly, and sat down very stricken and desolate. There was one whom he loved better than her—she felt it bitterly—a love more respectful, more profound—a woman, perhaps, whom he meant to make his wife some day, when SHE should be only a shameful memory!
It may have been the reproach of this infidelity, or the thought of his home, or the infatuation of his present guileful attachment, which kept Ralph Flare from labor.
There was the great Louvre, filled with the riches of the old masters, and the galleries of the Luxembourg with the gems of the French school, so marvellous in color and so superb in composition, and the mighty museum of Versailles, with its miles of battle pictures—yet the third month of his tenure in Paris was hastening by, and he had not made one copy.
Suzette was a bad model. She posed twice, but changed her position, and yawned, and said it was ridiculous. He had never made more than a crayon portrait of her. He found, too, that five hundred francs a month barely sufficed to keep them, and once, in the interval of a remittance, they were in danger of hunger. Yet Suzette plied her needle bravely, and was never so proud as when she had spread the dinner she had earned. In acknowledgment of this fidelity Ralph took her to a grand magasin, where they examined the goods gravely, as married folks do, consulting each other, and trying to seem very sage and anxious.