“How could he? It is impossible!” Sonia cried, a faint flush rising to her face.
“Yes; I suppose it must be,” Martha conceded; “and yet there was something special about the picture to him; and after he had seen it, he certainly took no further interest in looking yours up, which, in the beginning, he had told me he was going to do.”
“Martha, you must never let him know it! I trust you for that. I shall never own the picture as long as I live; and I have the solemn pledge of both you and Etienne not to betray me. You know it was against my will that I consented to exhibit it, and I could not endure to have it known that a melodramatic thing like that (for that is what it will be called) had been painted and exhibited by me. Did your brother laugh at it? Tell me the truth. If he laughed at it, I wish to know it.”
She had raised herself in the bed, and sat upright, looking at Martha with commanding eyes.
“Laugh at it, Sonia? Could any one laugh at that picture—least of all Harold? It is one of the most deadly things that I ever looked at. No; he did not laugh. Indeed, I think it took from him all power of being amused for the rest of the day. I only say this to prove that the impression which your picture made was a serious one. He said nothing about it, but I know he was impressed by it.”
The princess fell back on her pillows, with a face so flushed and eyes so brilliant that Martha feared that she must be in a fever, and blamed herself for having talked to her on a subject so exciting as the Salon. In a few moments she rose to go. Her friend, although she declared that the visit had done her no harm, did not try to keep her, for a sudden and excited fancy had seized her.
No sooner was Martha gone than she rose quickly, rang for her maid, and began to dress, regardless of the fact that her head felt light, and her limbs were trembling. She put on a long cloak and a large black hat; and, ordering her carriage, had herself driven to the Palais de l’Industrie.
A feverish desire to see the picture again had laid hold upon her. She wanted to look at it after knowing that Harold had done so, and to judge how much she had betrayed of
