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"Poor little one!" said M. Nioche, with a sigh; "it is almost a pity that her work is so perfect! It would be in her interest to paint less well." "But if Mademoiselle Noemie has this devotion to her art," Newman once observed, "why should you have those fears for her that you spoke of the other day?"
But the poor old man's spirit was a trifle more threadbare; it seemed to have received some hard rubs during the summer. Newman inquired with interest about Mademoiselle Noemie; and M. Nioche, at first, for answer, simply looked at him in lachrymose silence. "Don't ask me, sir," he said at last. "I sit and watch her, but I can do nothing." "Do you mean that she misconducts herself?"
Newman gave ear to his bargain and he went on. "He would rather his daughter were a good girl than a bad one, but if the worst comes to the worst, the old man will not do what Virginius did. Success justifies everything. If Mademoiselle Noemie makes a figure, her papa will feel well, we will call it relieved. And she will make a figure. The old gentleman's future is assured."
"Oh, serious!" cried Mademoiselle Noemie, but with her extraordinary smile. "I know very little about pictures or how they are painted. If you can't do all that, of course you can't. Do what you can, then." "It will be very bad," said Mademoiselle Noemie. "Oh," said Newman, laughing, "if you are determined it shall be bad, of course it will. But why do you go on painting badly?"
"But my father has complained to you," said Mademoiselle Noemie. "He says you are a coquette." "He shouldn't go about saying such things to gentlemen! But you don't believe it." "No," said Newman gravely, "I don't believe it." She looked at him again, gave a shrug and a smile, and then pointed to a small Italian picture, a Marriage of St. Catherine. "How should you like that?" she asked.
Noemie had no more twenty-franc lessons; but in the course of time, when she grew older, and it became highly expedient that she should do something that would help to keep us alive, she bethought herself of her palette and brushes.
"I shall be delighted to fling you into the pit!" Valentin had answered. "Oh, do make a rumpus and get into the papers!" Miss Noemie had gleefully ejaculated. "M. Kapp, turn him out; or, M. de Bellegarde, pitch him into the pit, into the orchestra anywhere! I don't care who does which, so long as you make a scene."
Newman promised himself to pay Mademoiselle Noemie another visit at the Louvre. He was curious about the progress of his copies, but it must be added that he was still more curious about the progress of the young lady herself. He went one afternoon to the great museum, and wandered through several of the rooms in fruitless quest of her.
It is about the lady you said the other night that you adored and that you couldn't marry?" "Did I really say that? It seemed to me afterwards that the words had escaped me. Before Claire it was bad taste. But I felt gloomy as I spoke, and I feel gloomy still. Why did you ever introduce me to that girl?" "Oh, it's Noemie, is it? Lord deliver us! You don't mean to say you are lovesick about her?"
That is an immense virtue. Yes, she is one of the celebrities of the future." "Heaven help us!" said Newman, "how far the artistic point of view may take a man! But in this case I must request that you don't let it take you too far. You have learned a wonderful deal about Mademoiselle Noemie in a quarter of an hour. Let that suffice; don't follow up your researches."
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