“Because you make me such provoking answers, Monsieur. My feeling is different,” she went on impetuously, “I could pass my whole life watching you paint.”
“You would get tired of it probably in the long run.”
“Never!” she cried, blushing a deep red.
“And you would have to put up with my pipe—that big pipe yonder—a horror.”
“I should like it,” she cried, with conviction.
“But you would not like my bad temper. If you knew how ill I can behave sometimes! I can scold, I can become unbearable, when this, for example,” here he pointed with his mahlstick to the Savonarola, “does not please me.”
“But it is beautiful—so beautiful!”
“It is detestable. I shall have to go back some day and renew my impressions of Florence—see once more the Piazze of the Signora and San Marco—and then I shall begin my picture all over again. Let us go together—will you?”
“Oh!” she cried, fervently, “think of seeing Italy!—and with you!”
“It might not be so great a pleasure as you think. Nothing is such a bore as to travel with people who are pervaded by one idea, and my ‘idee fixe’ is my picture—my great Dominican. He has taken complete possession of me—he overshadows me. I can think of nothing but him.”