"Amazed, I do not doubt," said Marien, somewhat anxiously. "But suppose we take our pose--Stay!--keep just as you are. Your hands before you, hanging down--so. Your fingers loosely clasped--that's it. Turn your head a little. What a lovely neck!--how well her head is set upon it!" he cried, involuntarily. Jacqueline glanced at Fraulein Schult, who was at the farther end of the studio, busy with her crochet. "You see," said the look, "that he has found out I am pretty--that I am worth something--all the rest will soon happen." And, while Marien was sketching in the graceful figure that posed before him, Jacqueline's imagination was investing it with the white robe of a bride. She had a vision of the painter growing more and more resolved to ask her hand in marriage as the portrait grew beneath his brush; of course, her father would say at first: "You are mad--you must wait. I shall not let Jacqueline marry till she is seventeen." But long engagements, she had heard, had great delights, though in France they are not the fashion. At last, after being long entreated, she was sure that M. and Madame de Nailles would end by giving their consent--they were so fond of Marien. Standing there, dreaming this dream, which gave her face an expression of extreme happiness, Jacqueline made a most admirable model. She had not felt in the least fatigued when Marien at last said to her, apologetically: "You must be ready to drop--I forgot you were not made of wood; we will go on to-morrow." Jacqueline, having put on her gray jacket with as much contempt for it as Cinderella may have felt for her rags after her successes at the ball, departed with the delightful sensation of having made a bold first step, and being eager to make another. Thus it was with all her sittings, though some left her anxious and unhappy, as for instance when Marien, absorbed in his work, had not paused, except to say, "Turn your head a little--you are losing the pose." Or else, "Now you may rest for today." On such occasions she would watch him anxiously as he painted swiftly, his brush making great splashes on the canvas, his dark features wearing a scowl, his chin on his breast, a deep frown upon his forehead, on which the hair grew low. It was evident that at such times he had no thought of pleasing her. Little did she suspect that he was saying to himself: "Fool that I am!--A man of my age to take pleasure in seeing that little head filled with follies and fancies of which I am the object. But can one--let one be ever so old--always act--or think reasonably? You are mad, Marien! A child of fourteen! Bah!--they make her out to be fourteen--but she is fifteen--and was not that the age of Juliet? But, you old graybeard, you are not Romeo!--'Ma foi'! I am in a pretty scrape. It ought to teach me not to play with fire at my age."