"Yes," said the woman, "you had forgotten the time--you had forgotten that the statue was modelled eleven years ago.... So you did not find her, after all! You began your search too late." "It is not that!" he cried, distressed. "Ah!" She had sprung to her feet, and stood panting. "Why lie to me? I am sorry for you, in a way--you haven't been a brute consciously." "A brute?" "What do you imagine you have been? A fool, you think, to yourself: I have changed, and you should have known I must have changed; it would have spared you the bother of seeking me, the disillusion when we met--there are no wrinkles creeping on the statue. Oh, it has been a fraud for you, I realise the sell! But you are not the only sufferer by your folly. A man can't talk to a woman as you have talked to me and leave her cold. He can't say, 'I felt all this for you before I saw you--now, good-bye,' and leave her proud; he can't adore her in the marble and disdain her in the flesh without her being ashamed. You have degraded me, jeered at me--you have taunted me with every blemish on my skin!" "It isn't that!" he cried again. "I was a fool, I own it--a brute, if you choose to call me one--but it isn't that." "What then? Is it my frock that alters me? I am poor, I can't afford such gowns as Beauvais put on me for the statue. Is it the way my hair is dressed? I can dress it like the statue again. The brow? You liked the brow. Well, look! time hasn't been so rough on me there--the brow is young. And you need not be jealous of my thoughts of Richardière, for I have never read a single word he wrote. What is there lacking in me? Tell me what you miss." "I can't tell you," he groaned. But he had started. "You _have_ told me," she said, shrinking. "I know now. My face is ignorant--the statue has more _mind_ than I!" He no longer said, "It isn't that." He drooped before her, dumb, contrite. After a long pause she quavered, dabbing at her eyes: "Well, I'm not an idiot--I should improve." "Is it an imbecile like me who could teach you?" "I should be content." "Never in a single hour! I fell in love with an ideal and went to look for it--failure was ordained. It is I who lack sense, not you." A ghost of a smile twitched her lips. "It was all the fault of that Beauvais; he stuck an expression on me, with the clothes. I did look like that in his studio, though the chilblain was itching. But even if I made myself look like it now, it wouldn't take you in, would it? Don't look so frightened of me, I shan't go on at you again. Poor boy, you have had a deuce of an evening!... Well, I suppose you are right, failure was ordained--and it is wise to cut one's failures short. You may go. And don't flatter yourself that you have hurt me so much as I said--my vanity was stung for a minute, that's all; to-morrow I shall have forgotten all about you.... You can find your way downstairs?" He hesitated--and took an irresolute step towards her, with half-opened arms.