dam model, named Irma Salle, whose
portrait had figured in every exhibition, as the original had in every
studio. Her low forehead, lip curled like an antique, this chance return
of the peasant's face to primitive lines--a turkey herd with Greek
features--the slightly tanned skin common to all whose childhood
is spent in the open air, giving to fair hair reflections of pale
silkiness, adorned this minx with a kind of wild originality, completed
by a pair of magnificently green eyes, burning beneath heavy eyebrows.

[Illustration: p196-207]

One night, on leaving a _bal de l'Opera_, d'Athis had taken her to sup
with him, and though this was two years ago, the supper still continued.
But, whereas Irma had become completely a part of the poet's life,
this intimation of the child's birth, curt and haughty as it was,
sufficiently indicated how little she was considered by him. And in
truth, in this temporary household, the woman was scarcely more than a
housekeeper, showing in the management of the gentleman-poet's house
the hard shrewdness of her dual nature of peasant and courtesan; and
endeavouring, at no matter what price, to render herself indispensable.

[Illustration: p197-208]

Too rustic, and too stupid to understand anything of d'Athis' genius, of
those fine verses, fashionable and refined, which made of him a sort of
Parisian Tennyson, she nevertheless understood how to bend to all his
whims, and be silent under his contempt; as if in the depths of that
peasant nature lurked something of the boor's humble admiration for his
lord. The birth of the child only served to accentuate her unimportance
in the house.

When the dowager Comtesse d'Athis-Mons, the mother of the poet, a
distinguished and very great lady, learned that a grandson was born to
her, a sweet little Vicomte, duly recognized and authenticated by the
author of his being,* she was seized with a wish to see and kiss the
child. It was, to be sure, a rather bitter reflection for the former
reader to Queen Marie-Amelie to think that the heir of such a great name
should have such a mother; but, keeping strictly to the terms of
the _billets de faire pari_ the venerable lady could forget that the
creature existed.

* According to French law, an unmarried man recognizing his illegitimate
child, thereby confers on him all the rights of a legitimate one,
including both title and fortune.

When she went to see the child out at nurse, she chose the days on