is all damp, so that the clay won't
dry."

"And the accident? Ah! do you know, we hardly believed in that?"

"You were wrong. I never lie. A fall, a terrible crash. But the clay was
fresh, I easily repaired it. Look!"

She removed the cloth with a movement of her arm; the Nabob stood forth,
with his honest face beaming with joy at being reproduced, and so true,
so natural, that Paul uttered a cry of admiration.

"Isn't it good?" she asked ingenuously. "A few touches there and
there--" She had taken the tool and the little sponge and pushed the
stand into what little light there was. "It would be a matter of a few
hours; but it couldn't go to the Exhibition. This is the 22d; everything
had to be sent in long ago."

"Pshaw! With influence--"

She frowned, and the wicked, drooping expression played about her mouth.

"True. The Duc de Mora's _protegee_. Oh! you need not excuse yourself. I
know what people say of him, and I care as little for it as that!" She
threw a pellet of clay which flattened out against the wall. "Perhaps,
indeed, by dint of imagining what is not--But let us drop those vile
things," she said, with a toss of her little aristocratic head. "I am
anxious to give you pleasure, Minerva. Your friend shall go to the Salon
this year."

At that moment the odor of caramel, of hot pastry invaded the studio,
where the twilight was falling in fine, decolorized dust; and the Fairy
appeared, with a plate of fritters in her hand, a true fairy,
rejuvenated in gay attire, arrayed in a white tunic which afforded
glimpses, beneath the yellowed lace, of her lovely old woman's arms, the
charm that is the last to die.

"Look at my _kuchlen_, darling; see if they're not a success this time.
Oh! I beg your pardon; I didn't see that you had company. Ah! It's
Monsieur Paul? Are you pretty well, Monsieur Paul? Pray taste one of my
cakes."

And the amiable old lady, to whom her costume seemed to impart
extraordinary animation, came prancing forward, balancing her plate on
the ends of her doll-like fingers.

"Let him alone," said Felicia calmly. "You can offer him some at
dinner."

"At dinner!"

The dancer was so thunderstruck that she nearly overturned her pretty
cakes, which were as light and dainty and excellent as herself.

"Why, yes, I am keeping him to dinner with us. Oh! I beg you," she added
with peculiar earnestness, seeing that the young man made a gesture of
refusal, "I beg you, do not say no. You can