Karl forced a laugh.
"Nonsense!" he said. "You talk like a silly child, Mimi."
"You say that now, but you did not say such things when you loved me, Karl. It is always the way with us poor models. At first it is, 'Ah, what shoulders, what beautiful coloring, what perfect ankles!' Then you paint us every day.
"And then it is, 'What in the world have you done with your figure? It is all angles!' or, 'What on earth have you put on your face? It is as yellow as old parchment.' And then you paint landscapes."
Mimi burst into tears, and vigorously dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. She was an extremely pretty girl of the bourgeois type, with heavy coils of straw-colored hair piled high on her head, and big blue eyes that were quick to weep.
Karl arose, threw aside his paper and essayed to comfort her.
"There, there," he said, patting her shoulder, "don't cry, Mimi; you are full of folly to-day."
As quick to smile as she had been to cry, Mimi unveiled her eyes and looked at him eagerly, her lips parting over her white teeth.
"Then you do love me, Karl? Ah, tell me that you love me."
"Yes."