“There is a woman beneath,” exclaimed Porbus, calling Poussin’s attention to the coats of paint with which the old artist had overlaid and concealed his work in the quest of perfection. Both artists turned involuntarily to Frenhofer. They began to have some understanding, vague though it was, of the ecstasy in which he lived. “He believes it in all good faith,” said Porbus. “Yes, my friend,” said the old man, rousing himself from his dreams, “it needs faith, faith in art, and you must live for long with your work to produce such a creation. What toil some of those shadows have cost me. Look! there is a faint shadow there upon the cheek beneath the eyes--if you saw that on a human face, it would seem to you that you could never render it with paint. Do you think that that effect has not cost unheard-of toil? “But not only so, dear Porbus. Look closely at my work, and you will understand more clearly what I was saying as to methods of modeling and outline. Look at the high lights on the bosom, and see how by touch on touch, thickly laid on, I have raised the surface so that it catches the light itself and blends it with the lustrous whiteness of the high lights, and how by an opposite process, by flattening the surface of the paint, and leaving no trace of the passage of the brush, I have succeeded in softening the contours of my figures and enveloping them in half-tints until the very idea of drawing, of the means by which the effect is produced, fades away, and the picture has the roundness and relief of nature. Come closer. You will see the manner of working better; at a little distance it can not be seen. There! Just there, it is, I think, very plainly to be seen,” and with the tip of his brush he pointed out a patch of transparent color to the two painters. Porbus, laying a hand on the old artist’s shoulder, turned to Poussin with a “Do you know that in him we see a very great painter?” “He is even more of a poet than a painter,” Poussin answered gravely. “There,” Porbus continued, as he touched the canvas, “lies the utmost limit of our art on earth.” “Beyond that point it loses itself in the skies,” said Poussin. “What joys lie there on this piece of canvas!” exclaimed Porbus. The old man, deep in his own musings, smiled at the woman he alone beheld, and did not hear. “But sooner or later he will find out that there is nothing there!” cried Poussin. “Nothing on my canvas!” said Frenhofer, looking in turn at either painter and at his picture. “What have you done?” muttered Porbus, turning to Poussin. The old man clutched the young painter’s arm and said, “Do you see nothing? clodpate! Huguenot! varlet! cullion! What brought you here into my studio?--My good Porbus,” he went on, as he turned to the painter, “are you also making a fool of me? Answer! I am your friend. Tell me, have I ruined my picture after all?”