"You look so unhappy," he replied. "I have never seen any one who could have received an ovation with such an expression of mere tolerance."
She sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "H-m! And you perhaps think that I am above such flatteries, that they are wearisome to me?" she asked.
"It had that appearance."
"How appearances deceive!" sighed she, humorously. "No one is more susceptible to flattery than I; but, quite aside from the fact that many of these men said coarse things which they considered compliments to me, the expressions of merely two or three of them were agreeable to me. Men artists with us women artists completely ignore that thus far and no further, that atmosphere of apartness, which forms a convenient barrier between a modest woman and a man. What sans gêner their conversation requires; they treat us as men, and that is unbearable."
Nikolai smiled still more. He was indescribably pleased at her unvanquishable maidenly sensitiveness.
She thrust her hands thoughtfully in the pockets of her jacket. "Do not ridicule me," sighed she; "but how agreeable it is to associate with a really well-bred man like you, for instance. One feels that first when one is an artist."
"You are a droll artist," said he, and laughed quite heartily.
She shrugged her shoulders comically, and said: "It seems so to me sometimes."
His heart was in his mouth. Was not that the moment? But before he could have said a word, she turned away her head and said: "Ah! there is Sonia."
Sonia perceived her friend. "Ah! there you are at last," cried she, gayly. "I have sought you for an hour. Your picture is splendid; your success indescribable. You cannot imagine how proud I am of you."