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Jenkins's patients A luncheon in the Place Vendome Memoirs of an office porter A mere glance at the Territorial Bank A debut in society The Joyeuse family Felicia Ruys Jansoulet at home The Bethlehem Society Bonne Maman Memoirs of an office porter Servants The festivities in honour of the Bey A Corsican election A day of spleen The Exhibition Memoirs of an office porter In the antechamber A public man The apparition The Jenkins pearls The funeral La Baronne Hemerlingue The sitting Dramas of Paris Memoirs of an office porter The last leaves At Bordighera The first night of "Revolt"
Among those children of great manufacturers, Parisian notaries and gentleman-farmers, a substantial little world by themselves, somewhat inclined to stiffness and formality, the well-known name of old Ruys, and the respect which is universally manifested in Paris for a high reputation as an artist, gave to Felicia a position apart from the rest and greatly envied; a position made even more brilliant by her success in her studies, by a genuine talent for drawing, and by her beauty, that element of superiority which produces its effect even upon very young girls.
The first person whom he saw as he arrived was Felicia Ruys, standing, leaning on the pedestal of a statue, surrounded by compliments and tributes of admiration, to which he made haste to add his own.
His daughter's strange state caused the sculptor genuine distress; but it was of brief duration. Ruys suddenly expired, fell to pieces all at once, like all those whom Jenkins attended. His last words were: "Jenkins, I place my daughter in your care." The words were so ironical in all their mournfulness that Jenkins, who was present at the last, could not avoid turning pale.
There was a corner reserved for her, for her attempts at sculpture, a whole miniature equipment, a tripod, wax, etc., and old Ruys would cry to those who entered: "Don't go there. Don't move anything. That is the little one's corner." So it came about that at ten years old she scarcely knew how to read and could handle the boasting-tool with marvellous skill.
There were artists with shapely heads and bright red beards, and here and there the white poll of an old man, sentimental friends of the elder Ruys; then there were connoisseurs, men of the world, bankers, brokers, and some young swells who came rather to see the fair sculptress than her sculpture, so that they would have the right to say that evening at the club: "I was at Felicia's to-day."
Felicia listened to it all with the greatest calm, raised by her success above the littleness of envy, and quite proud when a glorious veteran, some old comrade of her father, threw to her a "You've done very well, little one!" which took her back to the past, to the little corner reserved for her in the old days in her father's studio, when she was beginning to carve out a little glory for herself under the protection of the renown of the great Ruys.
Finding that the last hour was approaching, he informed Don Fernando de Toledo where: he could find some candles of our lady of Montserrat, one of which he desired to keep in his hand at the supreme moment. He also directed Ruys de Velasco to take from a special shrine which he had indicated to him six years before a crucifix which the emperor his father had held upon his death-bed.
"What is the matter with her?" Père Ruys would ask; and Jenkins, with the authority of a physician, would attribute it to her age and a physical trouble.
The duke, just as they parted, urging him to come and see his gallery; which meant that the doors of the hôtel de Mora would be open to him within a week. Felicia Ruys consenting to make a bust of him, so that at the next exposition the junk-dealer's son would have his portrait in marble by the same great artist whose name was appended to that of the Minister of State.
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