Then emulation took hold of her--the fierce desire to be first in all the competitions of the _atelier_. David had the greatest difficulty in following her rapid speech, with its slang, its technical idioms, its extravagance and variety; but he made out that she had been for a long time deficient in sound training, and that her rivals at the _atelier_ had again and again beaten her easily in spite of her gift, because of her weakness in the grammar of her art. 'And whenever they beat me I could have killed my conquerors; and whenever I beat them, I despised my judges and wanted to give the prize away. It is not my fault. _Je suis faite comme ça--voilà! _ I am as vain as a peacock; yet when people admire anything I do, I think them fools--_fools!_ I am jealous and proud and absurd--so they all say; yet a word, a look from a real artist--from one of the great men who _know_--can break me, make me cry. _Demelez ca, Monsieur, si vous pouvez!_' She stopped, out of breath. Their eyes were on each other. The fascination, the absorption expressed in the Englishman's look startled her. She hurriedly turned away, took up her cigarette again, and nestled into the cushion. He vainly tried to clothe some of the quick comments running through his mind in adequate French, could find nothing but the most commonplace phrases, stammered out a few, and then blushed afresh. In her pity for him she took up her story again. After her father's sudden death, the shelter, such as it was, of his name and companionship was withdrawn. What was she to do? It turned out that she possessed a small _rente_ which had belonged to her mother, and which her father had never been able to squander. Two relations from her mother's country near Bordeaux turned up to claim her, a country doctor and his sister--middle-aged, devout--to her wild eyes at least, altogether forbidding. 'They made too much of their self-sacrifice in taking me to live with them,' she said with her little ringing laugh. 'I said to them--"My good uncle and aunt, it is too much--no one could have the right to lay such a burden upon you. Go home and forget me. I am incorrigible. I am an artist. I mean to live by myself, and work for myself. I am sure to go to the bad--good morning." They went home and told the rest of my mother's people that I was insane. But they could not keep my money from me. It is just enough for me. Besides, I shall be selling soon,--certainly I shall be selling! I have had two or three inquiries already about one of the exhibits in the Salon. Now then--_talk_, Monsieur David!' and she emphasised the words by a little frown; 'it is your turn.'