"But what? Come, speak out. Ah! this portrait. Whose is it?"
Up to this time the portrait had lain at Frantz Meyrin's. Out of prudence Paul had left it there. He had brought it to the studio only the day before.
"It is the Princess Olsdorf," he said, "a great Russian lady whose husband was most kind to me in St. Petersburg."
"You never told me about it. Why? Where was this picture?"
"In Russia. It came yesterday, that I might have time to work at it before the exhibition."
"She is a pretty woman."
"Yes; not bad."
"No doubt it was with the price of this portrait that you bought all these fine things."
"I painted five or six pictures over there, which I was well paid for."
At this moment he heard the wheels of a carriage stopping before the house.