thanks.
He found a handkerchief pressed to his forehead, and above the smell
peculiar to a studio, he recognized the strong odor of ether, applied no
doubt to revive him from his fainting fit. Finally he saw an old woman,
looking like a marquise of the old school, who held the lamp and was
advising the young girl.

"Monsieur," said the younger woman in reply to one of the questions
put by the painter during the few minutes when he was still under the
influence of the vagueness that the shock had produced in his ideas, "my
mother and I heard the noise of your fall on the floor, and we fancied
we heard a groan. The silence following on the crash alarmed us, and we
hurried up. Finding the key in the latch, we happily took the liberty
of entering, and we found you lying motionless on the ground. My mother
went to fetch what was needed to bathe your head and revive you. You
have cut your forehead--there. Do you feel it?"

"Yes, I do now," he replied.

"Oh, it will be nothing," said the old mother. "Happily your head rested
against this lay-figure."

"I feel infinitely better," replied the painter. "I need nothing further
but a hackney cab to take me home. The porter's wife will go for one."

He tried to repeat his thanks to the two strangers; but at each sentence
the elder lady interrupted him, saying, "Tomorrow, monsieur, pray
be careful to put on leeches, or to be bled, and drink a few cups of
something healing. A fall may be dangerous."

The young girl stole a look at the painter and at the pictures in the
studio. Her expression and her glances revealed perfect propriety; her
curiosity seemed rather absence of mind, and her eyes seemed to speak
the interest which women feel, with the most engaging spontaneity, in
everything which causes us suffering. The two strangers seemed to forget
the painter's works in the painter's mishap. When he had reassured them
as to his condition they left, looking at him with an anxiety that was
equally free from insistence and from familiarity, without asking any
indiscreet questions, or trying to incite him to any wish to visit them.
Their proceedings all bore the hall-mark of natural refinement and good
taste. Their noble and simple manners at first made no great impression
on the painter, but subsequently, as he recalled all the details of the
incident, he was greatly struck by them.

When they reached the floor beneath that occupied by the painter's
studio, the old lady gently ob