There was silence for a moment.

"Are you quite sure," said Virginie, "that he has done no harm to my
portrait? He frightened me."

"He has only done it good," replied Grassou.

"Well, if he is a great artist, I prefer a great artist like you,"
said Madame Vervelle.

The ways of genius had ruffled up these orderly bourgeois.

The phase of autumn so pleasantly named "Saint Martin's summer" was
just beginning. With the timidity of a neophyte in presence of a man
of genius, Vervelle risked giving Fougeres an invitation to come out
to his country-house on the following Sunday. He knew, he said, how
little attraction a plain bourgeois family could offer to an artist.

"You artists," he continued, "want emotions, great scenes, and witty
talk; but you'll find good wines, and I rely on my collection of
pictures to compensate an artist like you for the bore of dining with
mere merchants."

This form of idolatry, which stroked his innocent self-love, was
charming to our poor Pierre Grassou, so little accustomed to such
compliments. The honest artist, that atrocious mediocrity, that heart
of gold, that loyal soul, that stupid draughtsman, that worthy fellow,
decorated by royalty itself with the Legion of honor, put himself
under arms to go out to Ville d'Avray and enjoy the last fine days of
the year. The painter went modestly by public conveyance, and he could