at house forever. Her husband did
not love her. No one but her mother cared for her. He was making her a
laughing stock before people. And all these incoherent complaints that
did not explain the motive for her anger, continued for a long time
until the artist guessed the cause. Was it the model, the naked woman?
Yes, that was it; she would not consent to it, that in a studio that was
practically her house, low women should show themselves immodestly to
her husband's eyes. And as she protested against such abominations, her
twitching fingers tore the front of her night dress, showing the hidden
charms that filled Renovales with such enthusiasm.

The painter, tired out by this scene, enervated by the cries and tears
of his wife, could not help laughing when he discovered the motive of
her irritation.

"Ah! So it's all on account of the model. Be quiet, girl, no woman shall
come into the studio."

And he promised everything Josephina wished, in order to be over with it
as soon as possible. When it was dark once more, she was still sighing,
but now it was in her husband's strong arms with her head resting on his
breast, lisping like a grieved child that tries to justify the past fit
of temper. It did not cost Mariano anything to do her this favor. She
loved him dearly, so dearly, and she would love him still more if he
respected her prejudices. He might call her bourgeois, a common ordinary
soul, but that was what she wanted to be, just as she always had been.
Besides, what was the need of painting naked women? Couldn't he do other
things? She urged him to paint children in smocks and sandals, curly
haired and chubby, like the child Jesus; old peasant women with
wrinkled, copper-colored faces, bald-headed ancients with long beards;
character studies, but no young women, understand? No naked beauties!
Renovales said "yes" to everything, drawing close to him that beloved
form still trembling with its past rage. They clung to each other with a
sort of anxiety, desirous of forgetting what had happened, and the night
ended peacefully for Renovales in the happiness of reconciliation.

When summer came they rented a little villa at Castel-Gandolfo. Cotoner
had gone to Rivoli in the train of a cardinal and the married couple
lived in the country accompanied only by a couple of maids and a
manservant, who took care of Renovales' painting kit.

Josephina was perfectly contented in this retirement, far from Rome,
talking with he