“De Lanty,” he replied, without embarrassment or hesitation.
And, in fact, my dear Madame de Camps, a family of that name did live in Paris about that time, and you probably remember, as I do, that many strange stories were told about them. As Monsieur Dorlange answered my question he turned back towards his veiled statue.
“The sister whom you have not, madame,” he said to me abruptly, “I shall permit myself to give you, and I venture to hope that you will see a certain family likeness in her.”
So saying, he removed the cloth that concealed his work, and there I stood, under the form of a saint, with a halo round my head. Could I be angry at the liberty thus taken?
My husband and Nais gave a cry of admiration at the wonderful likeness they had before their eyes. As for Monsieur Dorlange, he at once explained the cause of his scenic effect.
“This statue,” he said, “is a Saint-Ursula, ordered by a convent in the provinces. Under circumstances which it would take too long to relate, the type of this saint, the person whom I mentioned just now, was firmly fixed in my memory. I should vainly have attempted to create by my imagination another type for that saint, it could not have been so completely the expression of my thought. I therefore began to model this figure which you see from memory, then one day, madame, at Saint-Thomas d’Aquin, I saw you, and I had the superstition to believe that you were sent to me by Providence. After that, I worked from you only, and as I did not feel at liberty to ask you to come to my studio, the best I could do was to study you when we met, and I multiplied my chances of doing so. I carefully avoided knowing your name and social position, for I feared to bring you down from the ideal and materialize you.”
“Oh! I have often seen you following us,” said Nais, with her clever little air.
How little we know children, and their turn for observation! As for my husband, it seemed to me that he ought to have pricked up his ears at this tale of the daring manner in which his wife had been used as a model. Monsieur de l’Estorade is certainly no fool; in all social matters he has the highest sense of conventional propriety, and as for jealousy, I think if I gave him the slightest occasion he would show himself ridiculously jealous. But now, the sight of his “beautiful Renee,” as he calls me, done into white marble in the form of a saint, had evidently cast him into a state of admiring ecstasy. He, with Nais, were taking an inventory to prove the fidelity of the likeness—yes, it was really my attitude, really my eyes, really my mouth, really those two little dimples in my cheeks!
I felt it my duty to take up the role that Monsieur de l’Estorade laid aside, so I said, very gravely, to the presuming artist:—
“Do you not think, monsieur, that to appropriate without permission, or—not to mince my words—steal a person’s likeness, may seem a very strange proceeding?”