Paul Meyrin had not seen the young woman again until now since the day when, breaking off abruptly with her, he had sacrificed her for the sake of the Princess Olsdorf, on the arrival of the latter in Paris.
We know how Sarah Lamber took her revenge by sending to Prince Pierre the denunciation, supported by a score of newspaper clippings, which had come as a surprise on him at Pampeln, where he was, nothing doubting his wife. But this hateful action had turned to the confusion of Paul's former mistress, since it had ended, instead of in the bloody drama that, perhaps, in her anger she had hoped for, with the divorce of the princess and her marriage with her lover—that is, in the happiness of both of them; or, at least, so she must suppose.
After this piece of deceit Sarah, enraged at her own non-success, was careful not to boast of what she had done, or ever to speak of Paul Meyrin, except to congratulate herself on having nothing more in common with such a man—an artist without talent, mind, or future, and good for nothing better than to be the husband of a repudiated woman; and she had avoided going into public places, such as the theaters, where she would have been likely to see him.
Nevertheless, no matter what indifference she affected when mention was made in her presence of the household in the Rue d'Assas and its charming "At Homes," she never forgot her old lover, for she had really loved him; and when she heard in the studios she posed in that the painter was often visiting several of his artist friends, her dream was to meet him again. With what end in view? She did not define it. Perhaps it was simply to pick a quarrel with him, and to make him think, by some violent outburst, that she had always been laughing at him and his fancy for her; and perhaps it was to try, if the chance offered, to set a trap for him, in which he would let himself be taken as of old.
Sarah, therefore, was not really surprised to see Paul walk into Robert Aubrey's studio; but for all that she made a gesture of offended modesty, wrapping her shoulders in the light and transparent drapery which had covered her only to the hips, and exclaiming:
"So, so, people are to come in here as if it were a market-hall. Very well, then, I have done. I won't pose before strangers."
And jumping down from the model's table, she ran behind the screen where her things were, for, as is well known, a woman who poses, nude as she may stand while the painter is at his work, and, perhaps, before ten or a dozen artists at a time, will neither undress nor dress before any of them.
Paul Meyrin stood on the threshold of the room, struck with surprise first at this unexpected meeting and the young woman's exclamation, and then at her beauty, which had never seemed more dazzling to him.
After this momentary hesitation, natural enough in the circumstances, he approached the master of the house, who laughingly accepted his apologies, while two other brother artists, Gaston Briel and Raoul Martel, whom he offered his hand to in turn, jested aloud on the flight of the model ad salices.
Sarah, from her hiding-place, replied to them in a sharp and biting tone, which caused Paul strange emotion.