“She talks to you in enigmas,” he said to me with a gleam in his eyes which meant: “You shall see if my diagnosis is correct and if she loves me.” How could this Tussolin Don Juan resist the chance of satisfying two vanities at the same time, that of the observer and that of the seducer? He went on: “I am going to amuse you with the name of the member of the audience who so troubles her this evening. She is not so complex as you are, and it is simply a woman who gives her this feeling of annoyance.” “Jacques!” the actress cried in a supplicating voice, without noticing that the use of his Christian name betrayed their secret even more than her lover’s odious teasing. “I warn you that Vincent is one of her admirers,” the latter insisted in spite of this appeal. “Ah!” Camille said, looking at me with a sudden feeling of distrust; “does he know her?” “He is teasing you, mademoiselle; I have seen in the theatre no face to which I could give a name.” “Then I am a liar,” Molan went on, “and you did not say just now that Madam Pierre de Bonnivet was a Van Dyck who had stepped out of a picture just as, according to you, the Blue Duchess has stepped from a picture by Burne-Jones. There is no need to be surprised, Camille. Comparison with pictures is a mania with painters. To them a woman or a landscape is only a bit of canvas without a frame. This little infirmity is to their mind what an ink stain is to us authors, and he displayed, in spite of his elegant attire as a man about town, a slight black stain upon the middle finger of his right hand where he held his pen. That is just like the rouge upon the actress’ face, the little professional mark. Yes or no, did you say that about Madam de Bonnivet?” “It is quite right I said that,” I quickly replied, “but mention the fact that it was you who pointed this woman out to me, and that I have not been introduced to her. I told you, too, that I could see in her eyes a frightfully hard and bitter look. In spite of her beauty, elegance, and slenderness to me she seems almost ugly, and more than that—repulsive; I can quite understand Mademoiselle Favier’s impression.” The look of gratitude which the actress threw me was a fresh admission of her liaison with my friend. Besides she no more thought of concealing it than he did, though for a different reason. She could not conceal it because she was so much in love, while he paraded the intrigue because he was not in love at all. He caught her look and resumed in his bantering tone— “Ah, well, Camille, see how good I am. I have brought you some one to talk to you. He understands you already. Think what it will be when he has painted your portrait! For he is going to do so for me! Are you agreeable?” “Perhaps your friend has not the time just now!”