He was playing dreamily with the light shoe, turning it over abstractedly in his hands. He leaned over, kissed the foot, which appeared to float between the skirt and the rug, and which, a little chilled by the air, no longer moved restlessly about; then he slipped on the shoe, and Madame de Guilleroy, rising, approached the table, on which were scattered papers, open letters, old and recent, beside a painter's inkstand, in which the ink had dried. She looked at it all with curiosity, touched the papers, and lifted them to look underneath. Bertin approached her, saying: “You will disarrange my disorder.” Without replying to this, she inquired: “Who is the gentleman that wishes to buy your _Baigneuses_?” “An American whom I do not know.” “Have you come to an agreement about the _Chanteuse des rues_?” “Yes. Ten thousand.” “You did well. It was pretty, but not exceptional. Good-by, dear.” She presented her cheek, which he brushed with a calm kiss; then she disappeared through the portieres, saying in an undertone: “Friday--eight o'clock. I do not wish you to go with me to the door--you know that very well. Good-by!” When she had gone he first lighted another cigarette, then he began to pace slowly to and fro in his studio. All the past of this liaison unrolled itself before him. He recalled all its details, now long remote, sought them and put them together, interested in this solitary pursuit of reminiscences. It was at the moment when he had just risen like a star on the horizon of artistic Paris, when the painters were monopolizing the favor of the public, and had built up a quarter with magnificent dwellings, earned by a few strokes of the brush. After his return from Rome, in 1864, he had lived for some years without success or renown; then suddenly, in 1868, he exhibited his _Cleopatra_, and in a few days was being praised to the skies by both critics and public. In 1872, after the war, and after the death of Henri Regnault had made for all his brethren, a sort of pedestal of glory, a _Jocaste_ a bold subject, classed Bertin among the daring, although his wisely original execution made him acceptable even to the Academicians. In 1873 his first medal placed him beyond competition with his _Juive d'Alger_, which he exhibited on his return from a trip to Africa, and a portrait of the Princesse de Salia, in 1874, made him considered by the fashionable world the first portrait painter of his day. From that time he became the favorite painter of Parisian women of that class, the most skilful and ingenious interpreter of their grace, their bearing, and their nature. In a few months all the distinguished women in Paris solicited the favor of being reproduced by his brush. He was hard to please, and made them pay well for that favor.