"He is too beautiful for a man," she added, after such a scrutiny as
she would have bestowed upon a rival.

Ah! how sharply I felt at that moment those pangs of jealousy in which
a poet had tried in vain to make me believe! the jealousy of
engravings, of pictures, of statues, wherein artists exaggerate human
beauty, as a result of the doctrine which leads them to idealize
everything.

"It is a portrait," I replied. "It is a product of Vien's genius. But
that great painter never saw the original, and your admiration will be
modified somewhat perhaps, when I tell you that this study was made
from a statue of a woman."

"But who is it?"

I hesitated.

"I insist upon knowing," she added earnestly.

"I believe," I said, "that this _Adonis_ represents a--a relative of
Madame de Lanty."

I had the chagrin of seeing that she was lost in contemplation of that
figure. She sat down in silence, and I seated myself beside her and
took her hand without her noticing it. Forgotten for a portrait! At
that moment we heard in the silence a woman's footstep and the faint
rustling of a dress. We saw the youthful Marianina enter the boudoir,
even more resplendent by reason of her grace and her fresh costume;
she was walking slowly and leading with motherly care, with a