A slight sound of steps was heard on the pavement outside; it was a school of young girls being taken to Confession.
In the workroom, the tools, the time-stained walls, everything which remained there immovable, seemed to sleep in the repose of the centuries, and from every corner came freshness and rest.

A great square of white light, smooth and pure, fell upon the frame over which Hubertine and Angelique were bending, with their delicate profiles in the fawn-coloured reflection of the gold.
"Mademoiselle," began Felicien, feeling very awkward, as he realised that he must give some reason for his visit--"I wish to say, Mademoiselle, that for the hair it seems to me it would be better to employ gold rather than silk." She raised her head, and the laughing expression of her eyes clearly signified that he need not have taken the trouble of coming if he had no other recommendation to make.

And she looked down again as she replied, in a half-mocking tone: "There is no doubt about that, Monsieur." He was indeed ridiculous, for he remarked then for the first time that it was exactly what she was doing.

Before her was the design he had made, but tinted with water-colours, touched up with gold, with all the delicacy of an old miniature, a little softened, like what one sees in some prayer books of the fifteenth century.

And she copied this image with the patience and the skill of an artist working with a magnifying glass.