his
objection that it made Jacqueline too old. But since the painter saw
her thus they must accept his judgment. It was no doubt an effect of the
grown-up costume that she had had a fancy to put on.

"After all," he said to Jacqueline, "it is of not much consequence; you
will grow up to it some of these days. And I pay you my compliments in
advance on your appearance in the future."

She felt like choking with rage. "Oh! is it right," she thought, "for
parents to persist in keeping a young girl forever in her cradle, so to
speak?"

CHAPTER IV. A DANGEROUS MODEL

Time passed too quickly to please Jacqueline. Her portrait was finished
at last, notwithstanding the willingness Marien had shown--or so it
seemed to her--to retouch it unnecessarily that she might again and
again come back to his atelier. But it was done at last. She glided into
that dear atelier for the last time, her heart big with regret, with
no hope that she would ever again put on the fairy robe which had, she
thought, transfigured her till she was no longer little Jacqueline.

"I want you only for one moment, and I need only your face," said
Marien. "I want to change--a line--I hardly know what to call it, at
the corner of your mouth. Your father is right; your mouth is too grave.
Think of something amusing--of the Bal Blanc at Madame d'Etaples, or
merely, if you like, of the satisfaction it will give you to be done
with these everlasting sittings--to be no longer obliged to bear the
burden of a secret, in short to get rid of your portrait-painter."

She made him no answer, not daring to trust her voice.

"Come! now, on the contrary you are tightening your lips," said Marien,
continuing to play with her as a cat plays with a mouse--provided there
ever was a cat who, while playing with its mouse, had no intention
of crunching it. "You are not merry, you are sad. That is not at all
becoming to you."

"Why do you attribute to me your own thoughts? It is you who will be
glad to get rid of all this trouble."

Fraulein Schult, who, while patiently adding stitch after stitch to the
long strip of her crochet-work, was often much amused by the dialogues
between sitter and painter, pricked up her ears to hear what a Frenchman
would say to what was evidently intended to provoke a compliment.

"On the contrary, I shall miss you very much," said Marien, quite
simply; "I have grown accustomed to see you here. You have become one of
the familiar objec