"An American?" replied Thérèse; "have I not told you that I have the honor of being a compatriot of yours?"
"But you speak English so well!"
"You do not know whether I speak it well or ill, as you do not understand it. But I see what is in the wind, for I know that you are an inquisitive fellow. You are wondering whether Dick Palmer and I are acquaintances of yesterday or of long standing. Well, ask him."
Palmer did not wait for a question which Laurent could not readily have made up his mind to ask. He said that this was not his first visit to France, and that he had known Thérèse when she was very young, at the house of some relations of hers. He did not say what relations. Thérèse was accustomed to say that she had never known either father or mother.
Mademoiselle Jacques's past was an impenetrable mystery to the people of fashion who went to her to have their portraits painted, and to the small number of artists whom she received in private. She had come to Paris, whence no one knew, when no one knew, with whom no one knew. She had been known two or three years only, a portrait she had painted having attracted the attention of connoisseurs and been suddenly lauded as the work of a master. Thus, from the patronage of the humble and an unknown existence, she had passed without transition to a reputation of the first rank and to the enjoyment of an ample income; but she had changed not a whit in her simple tastes, her love of independence, and the playful austerity of her manners. She never posed, and never spoke of herself except to declare her sentiments and opinions with much frankness and courage. As for the facts of her life, she had a way of evading questions and going off in another direction which saved her the necessity of replying. If any one chose to insist, she was accustomed to say, after some vague words:
"We are not talking about me. I have nothing interesting to tell, and if I have had sorrows, I have forgotten all about them, as I have no time to think of them. I am very happy now, for I have plenty of work, and I love work above everything."
It was by pure chance, and as a result of being thrown together in an assemblage of artists, that Laurent had made Mademoiselle Jacques's acquaintance. Having been launched as a gentleman and an eminent artist in two different social circles. Monsieur Fauvel possessed, at twenty-four, an amount of experience which all men have not acquired at forty. He prided himself upon it, and mourned over it by turns: but he had no experience in matters of the heart, for that is not acquired in a life of dissipation. Thanks to the scepticism which he affected, he had begun by passing judgment in his own mind that all those whom Thérèse treated as friends must be lovers, and not until he had heard them affirm and demonstrate the purity of their relations with her, did he reach the point of looking upon her as a young woman who might have had passions, but not vulgar intrigues.
Thereupon, he had become intensely curious to ascertain the cause of the anomaly: a young, intelligent, and lovely woman, absolutely free and living alone of her own free will. He had begun to see her more frequently, and of late almost every day; at first on all sorts of pretexts, latterly representing himself as a friend of no consequence, too fond of pleasure to care to talk with a serious-minded woman, but too idealistic, after all, not to feel the craving for affection and the value of disinterested friendship.
In theory that was quite true; but love had stolen into the young man's heart, and we have seen that Laurent was struggling against the invasion of a sentiment which he still desired to disguise from Thérèse and from himself, especially as he felt it for the first time in his life.
"But, after all," he said, when he had promised Monsieur Palmer to undertake his portrait, "why in the devil are you so bent on having a thing that may not be good, when you know Mademoiselle Jacques, who certainly will not refuse to paint a portrait of you that is sure to be excellent?"