with a lover's punctuality. Thus the most tyrannical woman or the most
ambitious in the matter of love could not have found the smallest fault
with the young painter. And Adelaide tasted of unmixed and unbounded
happiness as she saw the fullest realization of the ideal of which, at
her age, it is so natural to dream.

The old gentleman now came more rarely; Hippolyte, who had been jealous,
had taken his place at the green table, and shared his constant ill-luck
at cards. And sometimes, in the midst of his happiness, as he considered
Madame de Rouville's disastrous position--for he had had more than one
proof of her extreme poverty--an importunate thought would haunt him.
Several times he had said to himself as he went home, "Strange! twenty
francs every evening?" and he dared not confess to himself his odious
suspicions.

He spent two months over the portrait, and when it was finished,
varnished, and framed, he looked upon it as one of his best works.
Madame la Baronne de Rouville had never spoken of it again. Was this
from indifference or pride? The painter would not allow himself to
account for this silence. He joyfully plotted with Adelaide to hang the
picture in its place when Madame de Rouville should be out. So one day,
during the walk her mother usually took in the Tuileries, Adelaide for
the first time went up to Hippolyte's studio, on the pretext of seeing
the portrait in the good light in which it had been painted. She stood
speechless and motionless, but in ecstatic contemplation, in which all
a woman's feelings were merged. For are they not all comprehended in
boundless admiration for the man she loves? When the painter, uneasy
at her silence, leaned forward to look at her, she held out her hand,
unable to speak a word, but two tears fell from her eyes. Hippolyte took
her hand and covered it with kisses; for a minute they looked at each
other in silence, both longing to confess their love, and not daring.
The painter kept her hand in his, and the same glow, the same throb,
told them that their hearts were both beating wildly. The young girl,
too greatly agitated, gently drew away from Hippolyte, and said, with a
look of the utmost simplicity:

"You will make my mother very happy."

"What, only your mother?" he asked.

"Oh, I am too happy."

The painter bent his head and remained silent, frightened at the
vehemence of the feelings which her tones stirred in his heart. Then,
both understanding the peril