"Now then, to work!" said he.
"It is only five o'clock," said Dora; "you have a good deal of time yet before dinner."
He mixed his colours and was soon apparently engrossed in the pansies. He worked three-quarters of an hour without stopping. Dora had taken a book, and sat reading a few paces from the easel.
On the stroke of six, a violent ring at the bell, impatiently repeated, was heard at the door. Philip, who had heard a cab draw up outside the studio, trembled with excitement at the sound of the bell and let fall his palette and brush.
"It is he," he cried; "it is de Lussac! no one else would ring violently like that. He has good news, he must have—yes," he shouted, wild with joy, "it is his step, I hear him."
And he ran to meet the young attaché, whose voice he recognised.
Dora had thrown her book down on the sofa, and had risen from her chair.
De Lussac came briskly into the studio, with a telegram in his hand, which he waved about his head.
"Good news! Victory!" he cried. "Hip, hip, hurrah! as you say in England—adopted unanimously, my dear fellow. The Government offers you a million francs for the shell—here is the wire!"
Philip was half beside himself with joy. He seized the telegram from the hands of the attaché, read it, re-read it, and handed it back.