ed woman, gentle, reserved, and at the age when her beauty
had a rare autumnal quality--the very apex of its perfection; in a few
years, in a year, perhaps, the change would come and crabbed winter set
in. He particularly admired the oval of her face, her soft brown eyes,
and the harmonious contour of her head. He saw her instantly with a
painter's imagination--filmy lace must modulate about her head like a
dreamy aureole; across her figure a scarf of yellow silk; in her hands
he would paint a crystal vase, and in the vase one rose with a heart of
sulphur. And her eyes would gaze as if she saw the symbol of her
age--the days slipping away like ropes of sand from her grasp. He could
make a fascinating portrait he thought, and he said so. Instantly
another peal of irritating laughter came from Berenice:--

"Don't tell papa. He is _so_ jealous of the portrait he tried to make of
mamma last summer. You never saw it! It's awful. It's hid away behind a
lot of canvases in the atelier. It looks like a Cezanne still-life. I'll
show it to you sometime." Her mother revealed annoyance by compressing
her lips. Falcroft said nothing. They had skirted the pool in single
file, for the path was narrow and the denseness of the trees caused a
partial obscurity. When they reached the wall, the moon was rising in
the eastern sky.

"_L'heure exquise_," murmured Madame Mineur. Berenice wandered down the
road and Hubert helped her mother to the wall, where he sat beside her
and looked at her. He was a big, muscular man with shaven cheeks, dark
eyes, and plenty of tumbled hair, in which flecks of gray were showing.
He had been a classmate of Theophile Mineur, for whose talents or
personality he had never betrayed much liking. But one day at a
_dejeuner_, which had prolonged itself until evening, Mineur insisted on
his old friend--the Burgundy was old, too--accompanying him to
Villiers-le-Bel, and not without a motive. He knew Falcroft to be rich,
and he would not be sorry to see his capricious and mischievous
stepdaughter well settled. But Falcroft immediately paid court to Madame
Mineur, and Berenice had to content herself with watching him and making
fun to her stepfather of the American painter's height and gestures.
The visit had been repeated. Berenice was amused by a dinner _en ville_
and a theatre party, and then Hubert Falcroft became a friend of the
household. When Mineur was away painting, the visits were not
interrupted.

"Listen,