A great idea had
occurred to her; during her sleep she had thought out an absolutely
original scientific theory that would delight Monteverde. And she
explained it earnestly to the master, who nodded his approval without
understanding a word, thinking it was a pity to see such an attractive
mouth uttering such follies.
At other times she would talk to him about the speech she was preparing
for a fair of the Woman's Association, the _magnum opus_ of her
presidency; and drawing her ivory arms from under the sheet with a
calmness that dazed Renovales, she would pick up from the nearby table
some sheets of paper scribbled with pencil, and ask her friend to tell
her who was the greatest painter in the world, for she had left a blank
to fill in with this name.
After an hour of incessant chatter while the artist watched her silently
with greedy eyes, he finally came to the urgent matter, the desperate
summons that had made the master leave his work. It was always an affair
of life or death, compromises in which her honor was at stake. Sometimes
she wanted him to paint some little thing on the fan of a foreign lady
who was eager to take away from Spain some souvenir of the great master.
The person in question had asked her at a diplomatic soiree the night
before, knowing her friendship with Renovales. Or she had sent for him
to ask him for some little sketch, a daub, any one of the little things
that lay in the corner of his studio for a bazaar of the Association for
the Benefit of Fallen Women, whom the countess and her friends were very
eager to rescue.
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