When Francie, two days later, passed with Mr. Flack into Charles Waterlow’s studio she found Mme. de Cliche¹ before the great canvas. She enjoyed every positive sign that the Proberts took an interest in her, and this was a considerable symptom, Gaston’s second sister’s coming all that way — she lived over by the Invalides — to look at the portrait once more. Francie knew she had seen it at an earlier stage; the work had excited curiosity and discussion among the Proberts from the first of their making her acquaintance, when they went into considerations about it which had not occurred to the original and her companions — frequently as, to our knowledge, these good people had conversed² on the subject. Gaston had told her that opinions differed much in the family as to the merit of the work, and that Margaret, precisely³, had gone so far as to say that it might be a masterpiece of tone but didn’t make her look like a lady. His father on the other hand had no objection to offer to the character in which it represented her, but he didn’t think it well painted. “Regardez-moi ca, et ca, et ca, je vous demande!” he had exclaimed, making little dashes at the canvas with his glove, toward mystifying spots, on occasions when the artist was not at hand. The Proberts always fell into French when they spoke⁴ on a question of art. “Poor dear papa, he only understands le vieux jeu!” Gaston had explained, and he had still further to expound⁵ what he meant by the old game. The brand-newness of Charles Waterlow’s game had already been a bewilderment to Mr. Probert.

Francie remembered now — she had forgotten it — Margaret de Cliche’s having told her she meant to come again. She hoped the marquise thought by this time that, on canvas at least, she looked a little more like a lady. Mme. de Cliche smiled at her at any rate and kissed her, as if in fact there could be no mistake. She smiled also at Mr. Flack, on Francie’s introducing him, and only looked grave when, after she had asked where the others were — the papa and the grande soeur — the girl replied that she hadn’t the least idea: her party consisted only of herself and Mr. Flack. Then Mme. de Cliche’s grace

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