As soon as Madame Servin entered the studio, her eyes turned to the door near which Ginevra was seated.Under present circumstances the fact of this glance was not lost.Though at first none of the pupils took notice of it, Mademoiselle Thirion recollected it later, and it explained to her the doubt, fear, and mystery which now gave something wild and frightened to Madame Servin's eyes.
"Mesdemoiselles," she said, "Monsieur Servin cannot come to-day."Then she went round complimenting each young girl, receiving in return a volume of those feminine caresses which are given as much by the tones of the voice and by looks as by gestures.She presently reached Ginevra, under the influence of an uneasiness she tried in vain to disguise.They nodded to each other in a friendly way, but said nothing; one painted, the other stood looking at the painting.The breathing of the soldier in the closet could be distinctly heard, but Madame Servin appeared not to notice it; her feigned ignorance was so obvious that Ginevra recognized it at once for wilful deafness.
Presently the unknown man turned on his pallet.
The Italian then looked fixedly at Madame Servin, who said, without the slightest change of face:--"Your copy is as fine as the original; if I had to choose between the two I should be puzzled.""Monsieur Servin has not taken his wife into his confidence as to this mystery," thought Ginevra, who, after replying to the young wife's speech with a gentle smile of incredulity, began to hum a Corsican "canzonetta" to cover the noise that was made by the prisoner.
It was so unusual a thing to hear the studious Italian sing, that all the other young girls looked up at her in surprise.Later, this circumstance served as proof to the charitable suppositions of jealousy.
Madame Servin soon went away, and the session ended without further events; Ginevra allowed her companions to depart, and seemed to intend to work later.But, unconsciously to herself, she betrayed her desire to be left alone by impatient glances, ill-disguised, at the pupils who were slow in leaving.Mademoiselle Thirion, a cruel enemy to the girl who excelled her in everything, guessed by the instinct of jealousy that her rival's industry hid some purpose.By dint of watching her she was struck by the attentive air with which Ginevra seemed to be listening to sounds that no one else had heard.The expression of impatience she now detected in her companion's eyes was like a flash of light to her.
Amelie was the last of the pupils to leave the studio; from there she went down to Madame Servin's apartment and talked with her for a moment; then she pretended to have left her bag, ran softly back to the studio, and found Ginevra once more mounted on her frail scaffolding, and so absorbed in the contemplation of an unknown object that she did not hear the slight noise of her companion's footsteps.
It is true that, to use an expression of Walter Scott, Amelie stepped as if on eggs.She hastily withdrew outside the door and coughed.
Ginevra quivered, turned her head, saw her enemy, blushed, hastened to alter the shade to give meaning to her position, and came down from her perch leisurely.She soon after left the studio, bearing with her, in her memory, the image of a man's head, as beauteous as that of the Endymion, a masterpiece of Girodet's which she had lately copied.
"To banish so young a man! Who can he be? for he is not Marshal Ney--"These two sentences are the simplest expression of the many ideas that Ginevra turned over in her mind for two days.On the third day, in spite of her haste to be first at the studio, she found Mademoiselle Thirion already there, having come in a carriage.
Ginevra and her enemy observed each other for a long time, but they made their faces impenetrable.Amelie had seen the handsome head of the mysterious man, but, fortunately, and unfortunately also, the Imperial eagles and uniform were so placed that she did not see them through the crevice in the partition.She was lost in conjectures.
Suddenly Servin came in, much earlier than usual.
"Mademoiselle Ginevra," he said, after glancing round the studio, "why have you placed yourself there? The light is bad.Come nearer to the rest of the young ladies and pull down that curtain a little."Then he sat down near Laure, whose work deserved his most cordial attention.
"Well, well!" he cried; "here, indeed, is a head extremely well done.
You'll be another Ginevra."
