him--for he has no heart, no sensibilities--he only understands
severities! And he defrauded me yesterday, he cheated me. I didn't even
know of his being here till he had gone. And the picture, where is it?"

It was on an easel, sunning itself beneath the park trees. The old
priest clattered along the gravelly walk, to take a look at it.

"_Tiens_--it grows--the figures begin to move--they are almost alive.
There should be a trifle more shadow under the chin, what do you
think?"

Henri raised his chin. Henri had undergone the process of
transformation in our absence. He was now M. le Marquis de
Pompadour--under the heart-shaped arch of the great trees, he was
standing, resplendent in laces, in glistening satins, leaning on a
rusty, dull-jewelled sword. Renard had mounted his palette; he was
dipping already into the mounds of color that dotted the palette-board,
with his long brushes. On the canvas, in colors laid on by the touch of
genius, this archway beneath which we were standing reared itself
aloft; the park trees were as tall and noble, transfixed in their image
of immutable calm, on that strip of linen, as they towered now above
us; even the yellow cloud of the laburnum blossoms made the sunshine of
the shaded grass, as it did here, where else no spot of sun might
enter, so dense was the night of shade. The life of another day and
time lived, however, beneath that shade; Charm and the cure, as they
drooped over the canvas, confronted a graceful, attenuated courtier,
sickening in a languor of adoration, and a sprightly coquette, whose
porcelain beauty was as finished as the feathery edges of her lacy
sleeves.