“Come and look before the light goes,” he urged. “Why Anne----” his triumphant tone changed abruptly to consternation. “You’re not ill, dear? You’re trembling so. What a brute I am! I’ve kept you posing too long. I forgot. Come and sit in this chair. Here’s a cushion. I’ll get you some water.” She shook her head. “I’m all right,” she assured him, trying to smile. “I want to see the picture.” He turned the easel towards her, and she looked at it a long time in silence. “Do you like it?” asked François at last anxiously. “It’s too good for me. It’s idealized,” she said. “But it’s the best thing you’ve ever done, François. I congratulate you. You’re right. It’s your masterpiece.” He felt a warm glow of pleasure. Anne as he had often acknowledged was an admirable critic, instinctively a connoisseur, and her life amongst painters had trained and sharpened her natural perception. Secretly François stood in greater awe of Anne’s verdict on his work, than on that of many of his fellow-craftsmen. “You have suggested all the Dymfield garden in those flowers,” she said after another silence. “In you,” he returned quickly, wondering at the tone in her voice. “I’m going to give you this, Anne,” he went on, speaking gaily to avert an uneasy fear. “I hope you appreciate the compliment. I lay my masterpiece at your feet, and you can pick it up and hang it in your salon, between the two long windows. That’s the place for it.” She turned slowly from the picture, and her eyes met his, while she shook her head. “No,” said she in a low voice. “I can’t take it, François.” “Why not?” She leant back in her chair, and a smile so sad that involuntarily he turned away, came creeping round her lips. “Because I’m a woman,” she replied. He made no reply. The meaning of her words did not escape him, but in a moment she translated them. “You’ve painted me at the end of my _beaux jours_,” she said. “Before they are quite over--but at the end. I’m very grateful. But I couldn’t live with that picture, it would be too----” She did not finish the sentence. “Besides,--there’s another reason,” she added after a further pause. “What’s this?” asked François, suddenly taking a book from the table. With a sort of blind haste, he strove to hinder her next words by snatching at any pretext to arrest them. “It’s a book you lent me, nearly three years ago, I’m ashamed to say. When I first came to Paris. I’ve always forgotten to return it. But to-day,” she paused as though her mind were wandering away from the present. “To-day I remembered it.” François took it up. “_Mademoiselle de Maupin._ I forgot I’d ever lent it to you.” “You remember the story?” He nodded. “Of course.” “It’s very different from my story, isn’t it? But the way she found, I had already discovered for myself before I read the book. It’s the right way. In my case, the only way.” François had just lighted a cigarette. He threw it away with a sudden jerk, and looked at her without speaking.