Julien's glowing, melting eyes said plainly enough what his thoughts were. Julie understood only too well. She tried to change the subject; she looked at the artist's pictures, she praised his talent, which was revealed to her simultaneously with his love, and she thought that she was telling him that she understood his art; but really it was his passion that she understood, and each word they uttered betrayed the all-absorbing thought that was in their minds. They both suddenly became so confused that they had no idea what they were talking about, and Madame d'Estrelle pounced upon Monsieur Antoine's lily in order to seem to be talking about something. "Ah! what a lovely flower," she said, "and how sweet it smells!" "Do you like it?" cried Julien. And with the heedless impetuosity of a lover drunk with joy, he broke the stalk of the _Antonia Thierrii_, and presented the superb flower to Julie. Julie knew nothing whatever of the affair in which that plant played so important a part; she had not seen Marcel for three days, and as Madame Thierry carefully avoided any mention of Monsieur Antoine's name, nothing had been told her. When she was invited to a christening at the hôtel de Melcy on the following day, she naturally supposed that the subject was the child of some favorite gardener. In short she was a hundred leagues from imagining that by breaking that stalk Julien broke off all relations with his uncle, and cast, it might be, a whole lifetime of affluence at the feet of his idol. And yet she uttered a cry of surprise and terror when she saw the artist's impulsive act. "Ah! _mon Dieu!_" she exclaimed, "what are you doing? Your model!" "I have finished," Julien replied hastily. "No, you have not finished, I can see that plainly enough!" "I can finish without a model: I know it by heart!" And as he cast a last glance of mental possession on the lily, yielding for a moment to his love for his art, Julie replaced it on its stalk and held it there, saying with playful and utterly unconscious grace: "I will hold it, finish your work; it will not wither at once. Come, make haste. The painting is so lovely! I should never forgive myself if I were the cause of your giving it up. Work away, I insist upon it!" "You insist?" said the bewildered Julien. And as there was another fresh piece of canvas behind his picture, he drew and painted with furious ardor Madame d'Estrelle's shapely and beautiful hand. The lily did not progress. It stood on its stalk to no purpose, while the unconscious Julie held it there waiting until it should droop never to rise again. O Uncle Antoine! where were you while such a crime was being committed, fearlessly and remorselessly, under the eye of a drowsing or evil-minded Providence?