"Mademoiselle," he said, with visible irritation, "there is nothing to say that I have not said many times already.

Your drawing is still ladylike, your color is still pretty, and, _sapristi!_ you have worked with me a year! Still," he added, recollecting himself--Lucien never lost a student by over-candor--"considering your difficult place the shoulders are not so bad.

_Continuez_, mademoiselle." The girl's eyes were fastened immovably upon her work as she sat down again, painting rapidly in an ineffectual, meaningless way, with the merest touch of color in her brush.

Her face glowed with the deepest shame that had ever visited her.

Lucien was scolding the Swede roundly; she had disappointed him, he said.