"Unfortunately, it is impossible."
"Adieu, then. To-morrow at eleven," she called after him. He made no reply.
It lightened and thundered all through the night, but scarcely a drop of rain fell; the air the next morning was as sultry as it had been on the previous day.
When Erika, with her grandmother, entered Lozoncyi's garden punctually at eleven o'clock, everything there looked withered and drooping. Lozoncyi himself was pale; his motions had lost their wonted elasticity, and his face was grave. When the old Countess asked him if he were ill, he ascribed his condition to the sirocco.
Erika noticed that there were no fresh flowers in the studio: he had taken no pains to decorate it for his guests, and she was conscious of a foreboding of misfortune.
"I must subject you to some fatigue to-day, I fear, that the picture may at last be finished," he said, speaking very quickly. "You must have patience this last time. I should not like to give you a picture that was not as good as I knew how to make it."
"You have already bestowed too much of your valuable time upon the Countess Erika," the old Countess said, kindly.
"Indeed? do you think so?" he murmured, with a bitterness he had never displayed before. "Do you think we artists should not be allowed to devote so much time to enjoyment? 'Tis true," he added, in an undertone, "that we have to pay for it."
Erika looked at him in startled wonder: his words were perfectly incomprehensible to her, but the expression of his pale face was one of such anguish that her compassion, always too easily aroused, increased momentarily.
As usual, she repaired to the adjoining room to change her dress with Lucrezia's assistance. When she returned to the studio Lozoncyi was standing with his back to the chimney-piece, his hands in the pockets of his jacket, while her grandmother, sitting opposite him in her favourite chair, was asking him, "What is the matter with you, Lozoncyi? Have you lost money in the stock market?"