ly
nodded to her friends as they entered, without interrupting her work.

"She has gone!" she cried to them, "otherwise I could not have let you
in, no matter how much I had wanted to. My children, you have no
conception of what a charming person she is! If I were a man, I would
marry her or blow my brains out!"

"You are indulging in very reckless assertions," Rosenbusch interposed,
raising himself a little on his toes, and stroking his thick beard.
"Just let's see if she really is so dangerous."

Angelica stepped back from the easel.

"Gentlemen," she said, "I hope you will praise me. Either I understand
as much about painting as a roast goose, or this will be my best
picture, and a real work of art. But just look at these curves! All
large, simple, noble, such as never grow under our native heaven. My
first idea was to paint the picture _alla prima_; but in the nick of
time it occurred to me that I should be very foolish to do so. For the
longer I can study this heavenly face, the happier I shall be. Just see
this figure, Jansen. Have you often come across anything like it?"

"The lady has style," remarked Rosenbusch, assuming as cool an air as
possible. "However, she doesn't seem to be particularly young, or else
your dead coloring gives her ten years too many."

"You are a strange mortal, Herr von Rosebud," answered the painter,
angrily. "In art you rave over nothing but old leather, but in life no
school-girl's complexion is rosy and satiny enough to suit you. It is
true, my beauty here told me herself that she was already--but I won't
be such a fool as to tell a girl's secret to gentlemen. But of this I
can assure you: that twenty years from now, when certain pretty little
dolls' faces have long grown old and faded, that woman there will still
be so beautiful that people will stand still in the streets to look
after her."

"And may we be permitted to ask of what nationality she is?" inquired
Felix.

"Why not? She makes no secret of the fact that she is from Saxony,
although you would never detect it from her accent; nor that her name
is Julie S., nor that she lost her old mother a year or so ago, and now
stands quite alone in the world. However, we haven't been having a mere
family gossip, but the most profound conversation on art-matters. She
is more intelligent in such things, let me tell you, than many of our
colleagues. And now you must excuse me, gentlemen, if I don't let you
interrupt me in my wor