His words passed almost unheard, for while he was speaking the crowd parted and the entire painting became visible. Brooke, leaning forward, at first flushed, then grew white to the lips. The scene set before her was a bit in the depths of the park at Fontainebleau. A grassy path melted away in the distance between great sombre oaks that strengthened as they reached the foreground. At the foot of one of these sat a man, an artist, who had been sketching, for his implements lay on the sward before him. His whole position was of dejection, except the head, which was raised in a startled attitude. A little behind him stood a young woman, clad in the dainty summer dress of every day, ash-brown hair loosely caught up beneath a simple hat, paint box and luncheon basket slung from her shoulder. One hand rested on the gnarled oak trunk, the other, reaching across his shoulder, dropped into the man’s idle, listless hands a bunch of golden grapes, that in their ripeness carried sunlight with them. Graceful and charming as was the composition, it was the handling of the light wherein the magic lay. Sifting down between the leaves, the glow of early afternoon hovered about the girl’s bent head like a halo, and passing behind, fell upon the man’s upturned face, transfiguring it with a sort of holy joy, then focussed and was swallowed in the bunch of grapes. A voice seemed calling in Brooke’s ears: “The last afternoon, when you all went sketching with the master, and after lunching in the woods you overtook the brotherhood of Clichy (as Lorenz’s coterie was called). Farther on and apart you found him alone, with head bent. You thought he was asleep and dropped the cool grapes in his hands, half as a trick, darting away again. Then good Madame Druz, the chaperon of the day, coming up, scolded you for ‘American imprudence,’ and finally that night you cried, half at her vulgar interpretation of a harmless act, and half because Lorenz never gave word or sign before your leaving. And because not a single flower of the mass that filled your railway carriage was from him, you let Lucy amuse herself all the way to Cherbourg by pelting officials with them at each station passed. He has painted you as you were!” cried the voice; “his face is as he might wish it to be.” It required an effort on Brooke’s part not to cry out, “Hush! speak lower!” so real did the words seem.