"You have never painted me."
"There are people above the artist's brush."
"But you paint the Madonna."
"Madame, the Madonna is anybody's property."
"Am I?"
"God forbid that a poet should speak lightly of beauty."
She laughed again, and touching her hair with her fingers, scanned herself in a little mirror that she carried at her girdle.
"Tell me frankly, am I worth painting?"
"Madame, that purple hair, those splendid eyes, the superb colour of those cheeks, would blaze out of a golden background as out of heaven."
She gave a musical little titter.