The girl smiled over her painting. But after a bit she looked up with a seriousness, nay, a bitterness, in her siren's face, which astonished him.
'It is not amusing to take you in—you are too ignorant. What do you suppose Henri Regnault matters to me? His world is as far above mine as Velazquez' art is above my art. But how can a foreigner understand our shades and grades? Nothing but success, but la gloire, could ever lift me into his world. Then indeed I should be everybody's equal, and it would matter to nobody that I had been a Bohemian and a declassee.
She gave a little sigh of excitement, and threw her head back to look at her picture, David watched her.
'I thought,' he said ironically, 'that a few minutes ago you were all for Bohemia. I did not suspect these social ambitions.'
'All women have them—all artists deny them,' she said, recklessly. 'There, explain me as you like, Monsieur David. But don't read my riddle too soon, or I shall bore you. Allow me to ask you a question.'
She laid down her brushes and looked at him with the utmost gravity. His heart beat—he bent forward.
'Are you ever hungry, Monsieur David?'
He sprang up, half enraged, half ashamed.
'Where can we get some food?'
'That is my affair,' she said, putting up her brushes. 'Be humble, Monsieur, and take a lesson in Paris.'