traced a bold outline round her so as to bring her forward.

'Are you coming?'

'In a minute; hang it, what's the hurry? Just let me set this right,
and I'll be with you.'

Sandoz shook his head and then remarked very quietly, lest he should
still further annoy him: 'You do wrong to worry yourself like that,
old man. Yes, you are knocked up, and have had nothing to eat, and
you'll only spoil your work, as you did the other day.'

But the painter waved him off with a peevish gesture. It was the old
story--he did not know when to leave off; he intoxicated himself with
work in his craving for an immediate result, in order to prove to
himself that he held his masterpiece at last. Doubts had just driven
him to despair in the midst of his delight at having terminated a
successful sitting. Had he done right, after all, in making the
velveteen jacket so prominent, and would he not afterwards fail to
secure the brilliancy which he wished the female figure to show?
Rather than remain in suspense he would have dropped down dead on the
spot. Feverishly drawing the sketch of Christine's head from the
portfolio where he had hidden it, he compared it with the painting on
the canvas, assisting himself, as it were, by means of this document
derived from life.

'Hallo!' exclaimed Dubuche, 'where did you get that from? Who is it?'

Claude, startled by the questions, did not answer; then, without
reflecting, he who usually told them everything, brusquely lied,