“You folks go on painting, and I’ll be the cook.”
Then she would disappear into the kitchen and come back presently with a delicious lunch which she had cooked all herself. I was afraid the Count was falling in love with her, for he used to look at her lovingly and sometimes he called her “Countess.” Lil would make faces at him behind his back, and whisper to me: “Golly, he looks like a dying duck.”
Twice a week, the Count had pupils, rich young women mostly, who learned to paint just as they did to play the piano and to dance. The Count would make fun of them to Lil and me. They would take a canvas and copy one of the Count’s pictures, he doing most of the work. Then he would practically repaint it. The pupil, so the Count said, would then have it framed and when it was hung on the wall the proud parents would point to the work and admiring friends would say:
“What talent your daughter has!”
The Count, between chuckles and excited “Ya, ya’s,” would illustrate derisively the whole scene to Lil and me.
He tried to form a Bohemian club to meet at the studio in the Château, and we sent out many invitations for an opening party. When the evening came there was a large gathering of society folk, and we had the place full. Every one went looking at the Count’s things and exclaiming about them, and they asked what he termed the “most foolish questions” about art.
Among them was a violinist, Karl Walter, whose exquisite music made me want to cry. He had a beautiful face, and I could not take my eyes from it all evening. When the party was over, he offered to see me home. The rest of the company were all departing in their carriages, and I thought rather drearily of that ride home on the horse-car. It seemed very short, however, with Mr. Walter. When we came to our door, he took my hand and said:
He would tell stories that were not nice and I had to pretend I couldn’t hear or didn’t understand them.