"Well, of all things! . . . Charles will be hurt by
your refusal."
"You will express my regrets to him, will you not?"
"Well, good bye, Monsieur Lirat! A person can freeze to death here."
And walking over to me, she gave me her hand.
"Monsieur Mintie. I nm home every day, from five to seven! . . . I shall be delighted to see you . . . delighted. . . ."
I bowed and thanked her, and she went out leaving in my ears some of the music of her voice, in my eyes some of the kindliness of her look and in the studio the strong perfume of her hair, of her cape, of her muff, of her small handkerchief.
Lirat resumed his work without saying a word; I was turning over the pages of a book which I was not reading at all, and upon the moving pages there was flitting incessantly back and forth the image of the young visitor. I certainly was not asking myself what kind of an impression I had retained of her, nor whether I had retained any impression at all; but although she went out, she was not gone entirely. There was left with me an indefinite something of this short-lived apparition, something like a haze which assumed her form in which I could make out the shape of her head, the turn of the back of her neck, the movement of her shoulders, the graceful curve of her waistline, and that something haunted me. . . . I still beheld her in that chair which she had just left, unfathomable and more charming than ever, with her tender and luminous smile which radiated from her and created a halo of love about her.
"Who is that woman?" I suddenly asked, in a tone which I forced myself to render indifferent.
"What woman?" said Lirat.
"Why, the one that has just left."
