“No, dearest.”
“I became a model—” She paused, but he said nothing and she went on. “I sat for one man only after the first week, and he was always good and kind to me, always. He painted a picture of me—I think you would like it—and the day before yesterday he had a show of his work. A lot of people came. I did not see Prince Tor di Rocca, but he was there, and after a while he spoke to me. I had met him before and I understood from what he said that Mamie Whittaker had broken her engagement with him.
“The next morning M’sieur Camille had to go out, and I was alone in the studio when the Prince came in and tried to make love to me. I was frightened, and I screamed, and just then Camille returned, and he knocked him down. He got up again at once. Nothing much was said, and he went away, but I understood that they were going to fight. I went home and thought about it, and when I realised that one or other of them might be killed I felt I could not bear it.
“I am so afraid of death, Jean. I try to believe in a future life, but that will be different, and I want the people I love in this one; just human, looking tired sometimes and shabby, or happy and pleased about things. I remember my mother had a blue hat that suited her, and I can’t think of it now without tears, because I long to see her pinning it on before the glass and asking me if it is straight, and I suppose I shall never see or hear that again, even if we do meet in heaven. Death is so absolutely the end. If only people are alive distance and absence don’t really matter; there is always hope. And then, you know, Camille is so brilliant; it would be a loss to France, to the whole world, if he was killed.”
“What did you say his name was?”
“Camille Michelin.”
“I know him then. He came to me once in Paris, after a concert, and fell on my neck without an introduction. Afterwards he painted my portrait.”
“He is nice, isn’t he?” she said eagerly.
He assented. “Well, go on. You could not let them fight—”
“I went to see the Prince at his hotel, and I persuaded him to write a sort of apology.”