paid no attention to the profound silence that reigned among the
patricians, and passed before their camp without pronouncing a single
word. Her absorption seemed so great that she sat down before her
easel, opened her color-box, took up her brushes, drew on her brown
sleeves, arranged her apron, looked at her picture, examined her
palette, without, apparently, thinking of what she was doing. All
heads in the group of the bourgeoises were turned toward her. If the
young ladies in the Thirion camp did not show their impatience with
the same frankness, their sidelong glances were none the less directed
on Ginevra.

"She hasn't noticed it!" said Mademoiselle Roguin.

At this instant Ginevra abandoned the meditative attitude in which she
had been contemplating her canvas, and turned her head toward the
group of aristocrats. She measured, at a glance, the distance that now
separated her from them; but she said nothing.

"It hasn't occurred to her that they meant to insult her," said
Matilde; "she neither colored nor turned pale. How vexed these girls
will be if she likes her new place as well as the old! You are out of
bounds, mademoiselle," she added, aloud, addressing Ginevra.

The Italian pretended not to hear; perhaps she really did not hear.
She rose abruptly; walked with a certain deliberation along the side
of the partition which separated the adjoining closet from the studio,
and seemed to be examining the sash through which her light came,
--giving so much importance to it that she mounted a chair to raise the
green serge, which intercepted the light, much higher. Reaching that
height, her eye was on a level with a slight opening in the partition,