Julie knew nothing whatever of the affair in which that plant played so important a part; she had not seen Marcel for three days, and as Madame Thierry carefully avoided any mention of Monsieur Antoine's name, nothing had been told her. When she was invited to a christening at the hôtel de Melcy on the following day, she naturally supposed that the subject was the child of some favorite gardener. In short she was a hundred leagues from imagining that by breaking that stalk Julien broke off all relations with his uncle, and cast, it might be, a whole lifetime of affluence at the feet of his idol.
And yet she uttered a cry of surprise and terror when she saw the artist's impulsive act.
"Ah! mon Dieu!" she exclaimed, "what are you doing? Your model!"
"I have finished," Julien replied hastily.
"No, you have not finished, I can see that plainly enough!"
"I can finish without a model: I know it by heart!"
And as he cast a last glance of mental possession on the lily, yielding for a moment to his love for his art, Julie replaced it on its stalk and held it there, saying with playful and utterly unconscious grace:
"I will hold it, finish your work; it will not wither at once. Come, make haste. The painting is so lovely! I should never forgive myself if I were the cause of your giving it up. Work away, I insist upon it!"
"You insist?" said the bewildered Julien.
And as there was another fresh piece of canvas behind his picture, he drew and painted with furious ardor Madame d'Estrelle's shapely and beautiful hand. The lily did not progress. It stood on its stalk to no purpose, while the unconscious Julie held it there waiting until it should droop never to rise again.