But he had finished the picture upon which lately all his efforts had been concentrated, and François was already urging that it was time to go. They were all in the garden one afternoon, when the subject was first mentioned. “This is delicious, charming, adorable!” exclaimed François, suddenly looking from the lawn across the level meadows, over which the sun was setting. “It has been a summer snatched out of Paradise. But we must be getting home to our daily toil.” Tea was over, but the table, laden with silver and dainty china, had not yet been removed. Anne sat near it, in a basket chair, an open book on her knee, from which at the men’s request she had been reading. Her white muslin dress with its froth of frills trailed on the grass. The muslin fichu crossed in front and knotted at the waist, revealed a glimpse of her long white throat. Despite himself, François glanced at her curiously. Her face was unmoved, but he fancied he detected the faintest tremor of the frills at her breast. René was lying in a hammock slung beneath the beech tree, and the two younger men lay on the grass, smoking. François’ remark was greeted with a torrent of invective from them. Paris be consigned to everlasting perdition! It was still summer. Why talk of going? René was silent. He raised himself in the hammock, and with half-closed eyes, looked at the evening fields. “What a beautiful effect,” he said at last. “Look there, where the mist is rising. I must get that. There’s a picture.” “You’ve finished your picture, _mon vieux_,” returned François, speaking in French. “I know the history of another one. You’ll mess about, and paint out, till the snow is on the ground. There isn’t time. No! The hour has arrived to pack up.” “We can’t leave sweet Anne Page!” declared Dacier half seriously. He turned on his elbow, and glanced up at her, smiling. Without speaking, Anne returned his smile. “She looks like an early Italian Madonna disguised as a Reynolds portrait,” thought François suddenly. “Why on earth has she grown so ridiculously attractive!” was his next irritable reflection. “She must come to Paris,” declared Thouret. “But of course she must come to Paris! When will you come, Mademoiselle Anne? At once, won’t you? It’s a magnificent idea. We’d take her to the Elysée Montmartre and to the Nouvelle Athènes. Yes! And to Versailles! Versailles in the autumn. Magnificent! And the little streets in Montmartre, and the Place Pigale! Seriously wouldn’t it be splendid to show our Paris to Anne Page?” They talked all together, exclaiming and laughing, François joining them. Dampierre alone said nothing. He was still gazing over the fields, now smouldering with faint gold, from which here and there like incense, a ghostly mist was rising. “There’s a picture there,” he repeated. “Hang the picture!” exclaimed Dacier and Thouret together. “Mademoiselle Anne Page is coming to Paris. Aren’t you, mademoiselle?”