But who was this refined girl? this--a painting tells things that cannot be translated into words--this olive-skinned girl who might have sat to Raphael for a Virgin, so different from Octave's usual women? They were of the Montmartre kin; but this woman might be a Spanish princess. And remembering that Octave had said he had taken out the portrait hoping that the Russian who had ordered the Pegasus might buy it, the thought struck me that she might be the prince's mistress. His mistress! Oh, what fabulous fortune! What might her history be? I burned to hear it, and wearied of Octave's seemingly endless chatter about his method of painting; I had heard all he was saying many times before, but I listened to it all again, and to propitiate him I regretted that the picture was not painted in his present manner, "for there are good things in the picture," I said, "and the model--you seem to have been lucky with your model." "Yes, she was nice to paint from, but it was difficult to get her to sit. A _concierge's_ daughter--you wouldn't think it, would you?" My astonishment amused him, and he began to laugh. "You don't know her?" he said. "That is Marie Pellegrin," and when I asked him where he had met her he told me, at Alphonsine's; but I did not know where Alphonsine's was. "I'm going to dine there to-night. I'm going to meet her; she's going back to Russia with the prince; she has been staying in the Quartier Bréda on her holiday. _Sacré nom!_ Half-past five, and I haven't washed my brushes yet!" In answer to my question, what he meant by going to the Quartier Bréda for a holiday, he said: "I'll tell you all about that in the carriage." But no sooner had we got into the carriage than he remembered that he must leave word for a woman who had promised to sit to him, and swearing that a message would not delay us for more than a few minutes he directed the coachman. We were shown into a drawing-room, and the lady ran out of her bedroom, wrapping herself as she ran in a _peignoir_, and the sitting was discussed in the middle of a polished _parquet_ floor. We at last returned to the carriage, but we were hardly seated when he remembered another appointment. He scribbled notes in the lodges of the _concierges_, and between whiles told me all he knew of the story of Marie Pellegrin. This delicate woman that I had felt could not be of the Montmartre kin was the daughter of a _concierge_ on the Boulevard Extérieur. She had run away from home at fifteen, had danced at the Elysée Montmartre. Sa jupe avait des trous, Elle aimait des voyous, Ils ont des yeux si doux. But one day a Russian prince had caught sight of her, and had built her a palace in the Champs Elysées; but the Russian prince and his palace bored her.