hunting about for pretty models. And where had he picked up that one?

More and more embarrassed by these remarks, Claude went on fidgetting.
'What a couple of idiots you are!' he exclaimed, 'If you only knew
what fools you are making of yourselves. That'll do. You really make
me sorry for both of you.'

His voice sounded so stern that they both became silent immediately,
while he, after once more scratching out the woman's head, drew it
anew and began to paint it in, following his sketch of Christine, but
with a feverish, unsteady touch which went at random.

'Just give me another ten minutes, will you?' he repeated. 'I will
rough in the shoulders to be ready for to-morrow, and then we'll go
down.'

Sandoz and Dubuche, knowing that it was of no use to prevent him from
killing himself in this fashion, resigned themselves to the
inevitable. The latter lighted his pipe, and flung himself on the
couch. He was the only one of the three who smoked; the others had
never taken kindly to tobacco, always feeling qualmish after a cigar.
And when Dubuche was stretched on his back, his eyes turned towards
the clouds of smoke he raised, he began to talk about himself in an
interminable monotonous fashion. Ah! that confounded Paris, how one
had to work one's fingers to the bone in order to get on. He recalled
the fifteen months of apprenticeship he had spent with his master, the
celebrated Dequersonniere, a former grand-prize man, now architect of
the Civil Branch of Public Works, an officer of the Legion of Honour
and a member of the Institute, whose chief architectural performance,
the church of St. Mathieu, was a cross between a pastry-cook's mould