“I ought to have gone abroad,” he declared, lighting a cigarette. “If it were not for these confounded commissions, I should be in Rome at this moment. There’s no light here. It’s abominable!”
“Why Rome?” asked the Vicomte lazily.
“I love Rome. And then sweet Anne Page is there, and she’s always an attraction.”
The other man looked up quickly. “By the way, it’s her portrait the Luxembourg has bought, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” He made a quick movement. “Good heavens man, it’s here, and I’ve never shown it to you. I forgot you hadn’t seen it. It goes next week. I kept it to do a little work on the background first.”
“Quick! Show me before the light goes,” urged his friend. “I was always curious about it.”
François crossed the studio rapidly, and returned with a large canvas.
“The best thing I ever did in my life,” he said deliberately, as he placed it on an easel in the middle of the room.
The Vicomte had risen, and in a silence that lasted for some time the men stood before the picture.
“Charming!” he murmured at last. “Adorable! They’ve picked out the right thing, mon ami, hein? The smile! How well one remembers it. So sweet, and so shy. And that flowered gown. Admirable! It suggests one of the Botticelli Madonnas. It might be a robe all sown with stars. And the hair, that delicious soft hair that was no particular colour—couleur de miel, perhaps.”