X.
When Francie, two days later, passed with Mr. Flack into Charles Waterlow's studio she found Mme. de Cliché before the great canvas. She was pleased by every sign that the Proberts took an interest in her, and this was a considerable symptom, Gaston's second sister's coming all that way (she lived over by the Invalides) to look at the portrait once more. Francie knew she had seen it at an earlier stage; the work had excited curiosity and discussion among the Proberts from the first of their making her acquaintance and they went into considerations about it which had not occurred to the original and her companions—frequently (as we know) as these good people had conversed on the subject. Gaston had told her that opinions differed much in the family as to the merit of the work and that Margaret, precisely, had gone so far as to say that it might be a masterpiece of tone but it didn't make her look like a lady. His father on the other hand had no objection to
