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Updated: May 14, 2025
And, my boy, I don't envy you that's the truth. With such a little demon for a wife I pity you, pity you hurrah!" "I am more to be despised," muttered Hubert Falcroft, as they moved away from the peaceful moonlit wall. I came not to send peace, but a sword.... I am come to send fire on the earth. Her living room was a material projection of Yetta Silverman's soul.
Was he, after all, longing for the flesh-pots of the philistine he, Hubert Falcroft, who had patrolled the boulevards like other sportsmen of midnight! At last the picture began to glow with that inner light he had so patiently pursued. Elaine Mineur looked at him from the canvas with veiled sweetness, a smile almost enigmatic lurking about her lips.
"I am listening," he answered; "is it a sermon, or consent to that portrait? Come, give in Elaine." He had never called her by this name before, and he anxiously awaited the result. But she did not relax her grave attitude. "You must know, Monsieur Falcroft, what anxieties we undergo about Berenice. She is too wild for a French girl, too wild for her age "
For nearly four weeks he had laboured on the face, painting it in with meticulous touches only to rub it out with savage disgust. To transcribe those tranquil, liquid eyes, their expression more naïve than her daughter's this had proved too difficult a problem for the usually facile technique of Falcroft.
His title now was the Ribbon Impressionist, and at the last salon of the Independents, Falcroft had the mortification of seeing a battalion of his former companions at anchor in front of his picture, The Lady with the Cat, which they reviled for at least an hour.
But one day at a déjeûner, which had prolonged itself until evening, Mineur insisted on his old friend the Burgundy was old, too accompanying him to Villiers-le-Bel, and not without a motive. He knew Falcroft to be rich, and he would not be sorry to see his capricious and mischievous stepdaughter well settled.
He was an American who had lived his life long in France, and only showed race in his nervous, brilliant technic and his fondness for bizarre subjects.... He had not stood many minutes when a young voice saluted him: "Ah, Monsieur Falcroft. Come, come quickly. Mamma is delighted to see you!"
Her mother revealed annoyance by compressing her lips. Falcroft said nothing. They had skirted the pool in single file, for the path was narrow and the denseness of the trees caused a partial obscurity. When they reached the wall, the moon was rising in the eastern sky. "L'heure exquise," murmured Madame Mineur.
But Falcroft immediately paid court to Madame Mineur, and Berenice had to content herself with watching him and making fun to her stepfather of the American painter's height and gestures. The visit had been repeated. Berenice was amused by a dinner en ville and a theatre party, and then Hubert Falcroft became a friend of the household.
The night Hubert Falcroft called at Chalfontaine Mademoiselle Élise Evergonde told him that her cousin, Madame Mineur, and Berenice had gone in the direction of the pool. He had walked over from the station, preferring the open air to the stuffy train. So a few vigorous steps brought to his view mother and daughter as they slowly moved, encircling each other's waist.
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