Fastened to the spot, she examined the picture with eager attention. Never had she imagined her cousin Hans to be possessed of such subtlety in expressing a graceful thought. It was he--it was Fulvia; not boldly and openly portrayed, but hinted at, indicated, shadowed forth, as it were. Patent to her, who was familiar with them both, and with their stories--a veiled mystery, not even a mystery--merely a delicate attractive picture to any outsider who knew nothing of the drama which underlay it all. ‘I knew it--I was certain of it!’ Minna said to herself, but quite beneath her breath. ‘I taxed him with it, and he turned it off. Why did he not speak out at the time? Oh, I would have helped him through everything. I would have become poor that he might have succeeded. If Fulvia had had a lover--one whom she loved, at that time--she might have been saved. She would have had a strength to resist which would have carried her through everything.... Hans, you fool! And how he has improved! I used to think his things rather finikin, I didn’t care for them--but this shows a perfectly enormous advance.’ ‘What are you looking at?’ asked the loud, cheerful voice of one her friends, just at her elbow. ‘That! Oh, isn’t it odd that Mr. Riemann’s picture should have got put close to your piece of sculpture? It’s a pretty thing, very. Do you know, I said the other day that, according to the accepted rule in such things, and judging from the outside only, the picture ought to have been by the woman, and the statue by the man. The picture is so delicate, you know, and refined and emotional, and all that. (I hear he has sold it very well.) And the statue--well, you know, Minna, it has been praised for its brutality: in the French sense of the word, not the English.’ To all of which Minna made little rejoinder, except a faint smile. She did manage to murmur that the picture was very charming, and that Hans had made great progress during the last few years. Then they moved on, laughing at Minna for not being more interested in the public view of her own work. They made the weary round of the gallery, and looked at all the most talked-of pictures, and at last went away to get lunch somewhere, and then to go and see some other show. All day long there dwelt in Minna’s mind the tender grace of that painting. She wondered who had bought it. She was longing to possess it herself. She felt unreasonably annoyed and vexed with the happy owner, whoever he or she might be. And when at night, wearied in brain and body with the empty whirl of the day, she placed her head upon her pillow, the scene again rose before her eyes: ‘The Two Mendicants’--the gracious figure, whose hand was relieving the one, and passing by the other, not even seeing him. Minna said within herself, ‘I’ll go again. I shall go and look at it as often as I can escape from them and get there alone.’