"What! for nothing?" they said.
Pierre Grassou could not help smiling.
"You shouldn't give away your pictures in that way; they are money," said old Vervelle.
At the third sitting pere Vervelle mentioned a fine gallery of pictures which he had in his country-house at Ville d'Avray—Rubens, Gerard Douw, Mieris, Terburg, Rembrandt, Titian, Paul Potter, etc.
"Monsieur Vervelle has been very extravagant," said Madame Vervelle, ostentatiously. "He has over one hundred thousand francs' worth of pictures."
"I love Art," said the former bottle-dealer.
When Madame Vervelle's portrait was begun that of her husband was nearly finished, and the enthusiasm of the family knew no bounds. The notary had spoken in the highest praise of the painter. Pierre Grassou was, he said, one of the most honest fellows on earth; he had laid by thirty-six thousand francs; his days of poverty were over; he now saved about ten thousand francs a year and capitalized the interest; in short, he was incapable of making a woman unhappy. This last remark had enormous weight in the scales. Vervelle's friends now heard of nothing but the celebrated painter Fougeres.
The day on which Fougeres began the portrait of Mademoiselle Virginie, he was virtually son-in-law to the Vervelle family. The three Vervelles bloomed out in this studio, which they were now accustomed to consider as one of their residences; there was to them an inexplicable attraction in this clean, neat, pretty, and artistic abode. Abyssus abyssum, the commonplace attracts the commonplace. Toward the end of the sitting the stairway shook, the door was violently thrust open by Joseph Bridau; he came like a whirlwind, his hair flying. He showed his grand haggard face as he looked about him, casting everywhere the lightning of his glance; then he walked round the whole studio, and returned abruptly to Grassou, pulling his coat together over the gastric region, and endeavouring, but in vain, to button it, the button mould having escaped from its capsule of cloth.
"Wood is dear," he said to Grassou.
"Ah!"