“Do tell it me!” “Gillette ... poor beloved heart!...” “Oh! do you want something of me?” “Yes.” “If you wish me to sit once more for you as I did the other day,” she continued with playful petulance, “I will never consent to do such a thing again, for your eyes say nothing all the while. You do not think of me at all, and yet you look at me--” “Would you rather have me draw another woman?” “Perhaps--if she were very ugly,” she said. “Well,” said Poussin gravely, “and if, for the sake of my fame to come, if to make me a great painter, you must sit to some one else?” “You may try me,” she said; “you know quite well that I would not.” Poussin’s head sank on her breast; he seemed to be overpowered by some intolerable joy or sorrow. “Listen,” she cried, plucking at the sleeve of Poussin’s threadbare doublet. “I told you, Nick, that I would lay down my life for you; but I never promised you that I in my lifetime would lay down my love.” “Your love?” cried the young artist. “If I showed myself thus to another, you would love me no longer, and I should feel myself unworthy of you. Obedience to your fancies was a natural and simple thing, was it not? Even against my own will, I am glad and even proud to do thy dear will. But for another, out upon it!” “Forgive me, my Gillette,” said the painter, falling upon his knees; “I would rather be beloved than famous. You are fairer than success and honors. There, fling the pencils away, and burn these sketches! I have made a mistake. I was meant to love and not to paint. Perish art and all its secrets!” Gillette looked admiringly at him, in an ecstasy of happiness! She was triumphant; she felt instinctively that art was laid aside for her sake, and flung like a grain of incense at her feet. “Yet he is only an old man,” Poussin continued; “for him you would be a woman, and nothing more. You--so perfect!” “I must love you indeed!” she cried, ready to sacrifice even love’s scruples to the lover who had given up so much for her sake; “but I should bring about my own ruin. Ah! to ruin myself, to lose everything for you!... It is a very glorious thought! Ah! but you will forget me. Oh! what evil thought is this that has come to you?” “I love you, and yet I thought of it,” he said, with something like remorse. “Am I so base a wretch?” “Let us consult Père Hardouin,” she said. “No, no! Let it be a secret between us.” “Very well; I will do it. But you must not be there,” she said. “Stay at the door with your dagger in your hand; and if I call, rush in and kill the painter.” Poussin forgot everything but art. He held Gillette tightly in his arms. “He loves me no longer!” thought Gillette when she was alone. She repented of her resolution already.