"Dawdled?--old, old?" he stammered. "Are you joking?"

"Why, my dear fellow, I suppose you don't take her for a woman of
twenty?"

He drew a long breath and leaned against a house, looking at me with
questioning, protesting, reproachful eyes. At last, starting forward,
and grasping my arm--"Answer me solemnly: does she seem to you truly old?
Is she wrinkled, is she faded, am I blind?"

Then at last I understood the immensity of his illusion how, one by one,
the noiseless years had ebbed away and left him brooding in charmed
inaction, for ever preparing for a work for ever deferred. It seemed to
me almost a kindness now to tell him the plain truth. "I should be sorry
to say you are blind," I answered, "but I think you are deceived. You
have lost time in effortless contemplation. Your friend was once young
and fresh and virginal; but, I protest, that was some years ago. Still,
she has _de beaux restes_. By all means make her sit for you!" I broke
down; his face was too horribly reproachful.

He took off his hat and stood passing his handkerchief mechanically over
his forehead. "_De beaux restes_? I thank you for sparing me the plain
English. I must make up my Madonna out of _de beaux restes_! What a
masterpiece she will be! Old--old! Old--old!" he murmured.

"Never mind her age," I cried, revolted at what I had done, "never mind
my impression of her! You have your memory, your notes, your genius.
Finish your picture in a month. I pronounce it beforehand a masterpiece,
and I hereby offer you for it any sum you may choose to ask."