tist's shoulder, turned to Poussin
with a "Do you know that in him we see a very great painter?"

"He is even more of a poet than a painter," Poussin answered gravely.

"There," Porbus continued, as he touched the canvas, "Use the utmost
limit of our art on earth."

"Beyond that point it loses itself in the skies," said Poussin.

"What joys lie there on this piece of canvas!" exclaimed Porbus.

The old man, deep in his own musings, smiled at the woman he alone
beheld, and did not hear.

"But sooner or later he will find out that there is nothing there!"
cried Poussin.

"Nothing on my canvas!" said Frenhofer, looking in turn at either
painter and at his picture.

"What have you done?" muttered Porbus, turning to Poussin.

The old man clutched the young painter's arm and said, "Do you see
nothing? clodpatel Huguenot! varlet! cullion! What brought you here into
my studio?--My good Porbus," he went on, as he turned to the painter,
"are you also making a fool of me? Answer! I am your friend. Tell me,
have I ruined my picture after all?"

Porbus hesitated and said nothing, but there was such intolerable
anxiety in the old man's white face that he pointed to the easel.

"Look!" he said.

Frenhofer looked for a moment at his picture, and staggered back.

"Nothing! nothing! After ten years of work..." He sat down and wept.

"So I am a dotard, a madman, I have neither talent nor power! I am only
a rich man, who works for his own pleasure, and makes no progress, I
have done nothing after all!"

He looked through his tears at his picture. Suddenly he rose and stood
proudly before the two painters.

"By the body and blood of Christ," he cried with flashing eyes, "you are
jealous! You would have me think that my picture is a failure because
you want to steal her from me! Ah! I see her, I see her," he cried "she
is marvelously beautiful..."

At that moment Poussin heard the sound of weeping; Gillette was
crouching forgotten in a corner. All at once the painter once more
became the lover. "What is it, my angel?" he asked her.

"Kill me!" she sobbed. "I must be a vile thing if I love you still, for
I despise you.... I admire you, and I hate you! I love you, and I feel
that I hate you even now!"

While Gillette's words sounded in Poussin's ears, Frenhof er drew a
green serge covering over his "Catherine" with the sober deliberation
of a jeweler who locks his drawers when he suspects his visitors to be
expert thiev