The head was now ready, the dress was to remain till to-morrow.
On that day there was a _préférence_ party in town at the General's. Bessy's mother was an enthusiastic _préférence_ player.... Consequently she was not at home. The aunt alone remained as the guardian of maidens, and she used generally to take a nap in the afternoon, or play patience. I don't know who presided over Bessy's toilet on this occasion, perhaps nobody. That clean-cut, pale pink bodice on other days had given full scope to her charming figure; but on this particular day it was more insinuating than ever. It seemed to me as if the frill of English tulle had crept considerably lower down the shoulder, nay, lower still.
One cannot imagine a lovelier masterpiece of a creative hand than that bust. And it is a painter's right, nay, his duty, not merely to look, but to observe. A dangerous privilege. My hand trembled, I seemed to freeze, and yet beads of sweat stood out upon my forehead.... She, too, seemed to remark my agitation. A roguish flame sparkled in her eye. She was now not a bit like her yesterday's portrait. She seemed to be flouting me. And I was putting that treacherous frill of tulle to rights in the picture, putting it where it _ought_ to have been. That is what I really call "_corriger la fortune_."
At this sitting the face was completely finished, and the dress also was painted. I thanked the fair self-sacrificing victim, and told her that she might now look at the picture; it was ready. The girl rose from her chair and peeped over my shoulder. She looked at the picture and laughed in my face.
"Why, you've readjusted the frill of my dress, haven't you?" said she.
"So you wore it like that purposely, eh?"
"Then was there something you didn't want to see?"
"There was something I didn't want other people to see."
"Well, now, I've been looking at you for days and days, and I've observed something _on you_ which is very nasty, and which I don't like at all."
"I had no idea you gave me so much of your attention."
"It is only a mere speck, no bigger than the eye of a bean."
And, indeed, on my right hand, just below the thumb, was a not very ornamental excrescence, which everybody could see when I was writing or painting.
