"It is absolutely true," said he to himself, "that all are running after her, and if I had been thrown in clearing some obstacle, the next man behind would have caught her."
But further meditation was stopped by Pani Elzen, who declared that she was growing cold in the shade, and wished to warm herself a trifle in the sun.
"Let us go to your rooms, and do you get a wrap," said Svirski, rising.
They set out for the upper terrace, but halfway on the steps she stopped all at once and said,—
"You are dissatisfied with me. In what have I offended; have I not done what was proper?"
Svirski, whose discontent had calmed somewhat on the way, and who was touched by her alarm, said,—
"Pardon an old original; I beg you to do so."
Pani Elzen wanted absolutely to find out what had made him gloomy, but in no way could she get an answer. Then, half jesting, half sad, she fell to complaining of artists. How unendurable, how strange they are, men whom any little thing offends, any little thing pains; they shut themselves up at once in themselves and then run to their lonely studios! To-day, for instance, she had noted three times, she said, how the artist was in him. That was bad! Let this wicked artist as punishment stay for dinner, then stay till evening.
But Svirski declared that he must return to his studio; then he confided to her his anxieties of an artist, his trouble in finding a model for "Sleep and Death," and finally the hope which he connected with that picture.
"I see from all this," answered the young widow, smiling, "that I shall have one terrible, permanent rival, art."