She had expressed her misgivings to that great French painter upon whom her beauty had made such an overwhelming impression. He had evaded her with polite smiles and words; then he finally told her seriously: "Mademoiselle, there is only one supreme happiness for woman--that is love; and she has only one gift of genius in which no man can equal her--that again is love."--The word had crushed her; her art life was thus a childish dream, and love!--Yes, she knew that she could love, and boundlessly! But her eye was yet to see the man who could kindle this love to the heavenly flame, and woe to her if she found him! He would not understand her love, not comprehend, and most certainly not be able to return it; would shrink back, perhaps, from its glow, and she would be more unhappy than before. [Illustration: TWO FAMILIES _Permission Ch. Sedelmeyer, Paris_ MICHAEL VON MUNKACSY] And had not this dismal foreboding already been most sadly fulfilled? Had she not felt herself unspeakably unhappy in her love for him who had met her as if the Immortals had sent him, as if he were himself an Immortal? Had she not declared countless times in writhing despair, with tears in her eyes and bitter scorn, that he did not comprehend her love, did not understand it--would never comprehend or understand it? Had she not seen clearly that he shrank back, shuddered--not before the perils which threatened along the dark way of love--he was as bold as any other and more agile--but before love itself, before all-powerful but insatiate love, love demanding everything! So she had felt even yesterday--even the moment after the blissful one, when she felt and returned his first kiss! And today! Today she smiled, with tears of joy, at her dejection. Today, in her imagination, she begged her lover's pardon for all the harshness and bitterness which, in thought and expression, she had entertained toward him, but now, with a thousand glowing kisses pressed upon his fair forehead, his loving eyes, his sweet mouth, would never again think, never again express! She had wished to work, to put the last touches on her "Woman with the Sickle." Her hand had been as awkward and helpless as in the period of her first apprenticeship, and it had occurred to her, not without a shudder, that she had sworn not to finish the work. It was a fortunate oath, though she knew it not. What should she do with this hopeless figure of jealous vengeance? How foolish this whole elaborate apparatus for her work appeared--this room with high ceiling, these easels, these mallets, these rasps, these modeling tools, these coats-of-arms, hands, feet, these heads, these busts, after the originals of the Masters, her own sketches, outlines, finished works--childish gropings with bandaged eyes after a happiness not to be found here--to be found only in love, the one true original talent of woman--her talent which she felt was her only one, that outshone everything which men had hitherto felt and called love!