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Hubert prudently began to roll another cigarette, and Madame Mineur retreated out of the moonlight, while Berenice turned her back and soon began to hum. The artist spoke first: "See here, you silly Berenice, turn around! I want to talk to you like a Dutch uncle as we say in the United States. Of course I'll paint you. But I begin with your mother.
Papa Mineur chills me with his cabinet pictures of haughty society ladies, their faces as stiff as their starched gowns." "Oh, Berenice, will you never say polite things of your father?" "Never," she defiantly replied. "He wouldn't believe me if I did. No, Hubert, I want to pose as Ophelia. Oh, don't laugh, please!" They could not help it, and she leaped to the grass and called out:
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.
About them the green of the forest had been transformed by the growing night into great clumps of velvety darkness and the vault overhead was empty of stars. June airs fanned their discontent into mild despair, and simultaneously they dreamed of another life, of a harmonious existence far from Paris, into which the phantom of Théophile Mineur would never intrude.
"Shall I step into the Dark Tarn of Auber and float for you? I'll make a realistic picture, my Master Painter who paints without imagination." And then she darted into the shrubbery and was lost to view. Without further speech the two regained the path and returned to the house. When Éloise was asked by Berenice how long Monsieur Mineur would remain away on his tour, she did not reply.
Give him a brilliant virtuoso theme and he could handle it with some of the sweep and splendour of the early Carolus Duran or the brutal elegance of the later Boldini. But Madame Mineur was a pastoral. She did not express nervous gesture. She was seldom dynamic. To "do" her in dots like the pointillistes or in touches after the manner of the earlier impressionists would be ridiculous.
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.
She disliked the idea of my portrait from the start. You remember on this spot hardly a month ago she challenged you to paint her as the drowned Ophelia! and all her teasing about Monsieur Mineur and his jealousy, and " "Our flirtation," added Hubert, sadly. "Oh, pray do not say such a thing! She is so hot-headed, so fond of you.
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.
When Mineur was away painting, the visits were not interrupted. "Listen," said Madame Mineur; "I wish to speak with you seriously, my dear friend." She made a movement as if to place her hand on his shoulder, but his expression his face was in the light caused her to transfer her plump fingers to her coiffure, which she touched dexterously. Hubert was disappointed.
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