“That might be,” said Fleurange, smiling in return. “Anyhow, I will do as you advise respecting it.”
“We will take it into consideration,” said the doctor. Then, glancing once more over the professor’s letter, he continued: “Do you know the name of the stranger who, by buying the last picture your father painted, has unwittingly rendered you so great a service?”
“I do not. That picture was sold with the remainder when, at the beginning of his fatal relapse, my father saw his finances diminishing, and lost the hope of ever repairing them. My poor father!” she continued with a trembling voice, “he was very ill the day he made me sit in order to finish that picture—” Fleurange suddenly stopped and blushed. The doctor’s look seemed to demand an explanation, and she continued artlessly, but not without confusion: “The owner of the picture is perhaps the stranger who visited the studio that day. At least, I acknowledge the idea has repeatedly occurred to me.”
“For what reason?”
“Because he was so delighted with Cordelia, and begged permission to see it after its completion. But my father, from that day, was obliged to give up the use of the brush, and the picture was sold as he left it, with the others.”
“Was this amateur a German?”
“I do not know. He spoke French very well, but with a slight accent, I know not what.”
“Was he some great lord?”
“I do not know—I have never seen a great lord.”
“But what kind of an air had this visitor—God bless him!” interrupted Mademoiselle Josephine.