"Berenice, Berenice," remonstrated her mother, "when will you cease such tasteless remarks!" She blushed in her pretty matronly fashion and put her hand on her daughter's mouth.
"Don't mind her, Madame Mineur! I like to meet a French girl with a little unconventionality. Berenice reminds me now of an English girl—"
"Or one of your own countrywomen!" interrupted Berenice; "and please—Miss, after this, I am a grown young lady." He joined in the merriment. She was not to be resisted and he wished—no, he did not wish—but he thought, that if he were younger, what gay days he might have. Yet he admired her mother much more. Elaine Côt-Mineur was an old-fashioned woman, gentle, reserved, and at the age when her beauty had a rare autumnal quality—the very apex of its perfection; in a few years, in a year, perhaps, the change would come and crabbed winter set in. He particularly admired the oval of her face, her soft brown eyes, and the harmonious contour of her head. He saw her instantly with a painter's imagination—filmy lace must modulate about her head like a dreamy aureole; across her figure a scarf of yellow silk; in her hands he would paint a crystal vase, and in the vase one rose with a heart of sulphur. And her eyes would gaze as if she saw the symbol of her age—the days slipping away like ropes of sand from her grasp. He could make a fascinating portrait he thought, and he said so. Instantly another peal of irritating laughter came from Berenice:—
"Don't tell papa. He is so jealous of the portrait he tried to make of mamma last summer. You never saw it! It's awful. It's hid away behind a lot of canvases in the atelier. It looks like a Cézanne still-life. I'll show it to you sometime." Her mother revealed annoyance by compressing her lips. Falcroft said nothing. They had skirted the pool in single file, for the path was narrow and the denseness of the trees caused a partial obscurity. When they reached the wall, the moon was rising in the eastern sky.
"L'heure exquise," murmured Madame Mineur. Berenice wandered down the road and Hubert helped her mother to the wall, where he sat beside her and looked at her. He was a big, muscular man with shaven cheeks, dark eyes, and plenty of tumbled hair, in which flecks of gray were showing. He had been a classmate of Théophile Mineur, for whose talents or personality he had never betrayed much liking. But one day at a déjeûner, which had prolonged itself until evening, Mineur insisted on his old friend—the Burgundy was old, too—accompanying him to Villiers-le-Bel, and not without a motive. He knew Falcroft to be rich, and he would not be sorry to see his capricious and mischievous stepdaughter well settled. But Falcroft immediately paid court to Madame Mineur, and Berenice had to content herself with watching him and making fun to her stepfather of the American painter's height and gestures. The visit had been repeated. Berenice was amused by a dinner en ville and a theatre party, and then Hubert Falcroft became a friend of the household. When Mineur was away painting, the visits were not interrupted.
"Listen," said Madame Mineur; "I wish to speak with you seriously, my dear friend." She made a movement as if to place her hand on his shoulder, but his expression—his face was in the light—caused her to transfer her plump fingers to her coiffure, which she touched dexterously. Hubert was disappointed.
"I am listening," he answered; "is it a sermon, or consent—to that portrait? Come, give in—Elaine." He had never called her by this name before, and he anxiously awaited the result. But she did not relax her grave attitude.
"You must know, Monsieur Falcroft, what anxieties we undergo about Berenice. She is too wild for a French girl, too wild for her age—"
"Oh, let her enjoy her youth," he interrupted.
"Alas! that youth will be soon a thing of the past," she sighed. "Berenice is past eighteen, and her father and I must consider her future. Figure to yourself—she dislikes young men, eligible or not, and you are the only man she tolerates."