ear Laure, whose work deserved his most cordial
attention.

"Well, well!" he cried; "here, indeed, is a head extremely well done.
You'll be another Ginevra."

The master then went from easel to easel, scolding, flattering, jesting,
and making, as usual, his jests more dreaded than his reprimands.
Ginevra had not obeyed the professor's order, but remained at her post,
firmly resolved not to quit it. She took a sheet of paper and began
to sketch in sepia the head of the hidden man. A work done under the
impulse of an emotion has always a stamp of its own. The faculty of
giving to representations of nature or of thought their true coloring
constitutes genius, and often, in this respect, passion takes the place
of it. So, under the circumstances in which Ginevra now found herself,
the intuition which she owed to a powerful effect upon her memory, or,
possibly, to necessity, that mother of great things, lent her, for the
moment, a supernatural talent. The head of the young officer was dashed
upon the paper in the midst of an awkward trembling which she mistook
for fear, and in which a physiologist would have recognized the fire of
inspiration. From time to time she glanced furtively at her companions,
in order to hide the sketch if any of them came near her. But in
spite of her watchfulness, there was a moment when she did not see the
eyeglass of the pitiless Amelie turned full upon the drawing from the
shelter of a great portfolio. Mademoiselle Thirion, recognizing the
portrait of the mysterious man, showed herself abruptly, and Ginevra
hastily covered the sheet of paper.

"Why do you stay there in spite of my advice, mademoiselle?" asked the
professor, gravely.

The pupil turned her easel so that no one but the master could see the
sketch, which she placed upon it, and said, in an agitated voice:--

"Do you not think, as I do, that the light is very good? Had I not
better remain here?"

Servin turned pale. As nothing escapes the piercing eyes of malice,
Mademoiselle Thirion became, as it were, a sharer in the sudden emotion
of master and pupil.

"You are right," said Servin; "but really," he added, with a forced
laugh, "you will soon come to know more than I do."

A pause followed, during which the professor studied the drawing of the
officer's head.

"It is a masterpiece! worthy of Salvator Rosa!" he exclaimed, with the
energy of an artist.

All the pupils rose on hearing this, and Mademoiselle Thirion darted