Three more weeks had passed, and the never-ending picture had undergone so many touches that it was a little less advanced than before. It is the certain sign that an artistic creation will not result: work destroys it instead of improving it, and it is a proof, too, that we do not accomplish works worthy of the name, they are made in us, without effort, without will, almost unknown to us. The sittings, too, became more and more irregular. Camille began to rehearse the piece to follow _La Duchesse Blue_, and sometimes from one excuse, sometimes another, one day because she was fatigued, another because she was studying her part, she found a way of putting off half her visits to the studio. When she did sit it was under very different conditions to the first sittings. Her _tête-à-tête_ with me had been a necessity to her at the time of her sweet confidences and even at the time of her tender uneasy complaints. A fear came to her now that her jealousy of her rival would endow her with an acute character of suspicious inquiry. Not once during the three weeks, the anxious expectancy of which I am summarizing here, did she come alone to the studio. Sometimes her mother, sometimes her cousin, sometimes a companion accompanied her. I should have known nothing of her but for guessing at her troubles from the very pronounced alteration in her face and her increasing nervousness on the one hand, and for having, on the other hand, three conversations with Jacques which were very brief but well calculated to edify me as to the cause of the poor Blue Duchess’ terrible trouble. “Don’t talk to me of her,” he said on the first occasion with angry harshness; “I should be unjust, for she loves me after all. But what a character she has! what a character!” “Ah! so she still continues to play to you her comedy of the beautiful soul unappreciated,” he jeered on the second occasion. “Come, don’t let us talk about her any more.” On the last occasion he said violently: “As you are so interested in her, I am going to give you a commission. If she wants to reach the stage when I shall not recognize her if I meet her, you can tell her she is well on the way to it. If I did not need her for my new comedy I should not do so now.” On neither of these three occasions had I insisted on knowing more. His harshness, irony and violence made me a prey to a very strange fear. I apprehended with real anguish the moment when he would say in his own way. “It is all over. Madam de Bonnivet is my mistress.” Under any circumstances it is saddening to receive such confidences. At least I have always felt it so. It is so repugnant to me as to almost become painful. Is it a result of the prudery with which Jacques reproached me? Is it a persistent prejudice, the remains of a conventional imposition before the woman’s modesty, as he also pretended?