She
felt that she loved him less as the suspicion rose in her heart that
he was less worthy than she had thought him.
CHAPTER II
Three months after the first meeting of Porbus and Poussin, the former
went to see Maitre Frenhofer. He found the old man a prey to one of
those deep, self-developed discouragements, whose cause, if we are to
believe the mathematicians of health, lies in a bad digestion, in the
wind, in the weather, in some swelling of the intestines, or else,
according to casuists, in the imperfections of our moral nature; the
fact being that the good man was simply worn out by the effort to
complete his mysterious picture. He was seated languidly in a large
oaken chair of vast dimensions covered with black leather; and without
changing his melancholy attitude he cast on Porbus the distant glance
of a man sunk in absolute dejection.
"Well, maitre," said Porbus, "was the distant ultra-marine, for which
you journeyed to Brussels, worthless? Are you unable to grind a new
white? Is the oil bad, or the brushes restive?"
"Alas!" cried the old man, "I thought for one moment that my work was
accomplished; but I must have deceived myself in some of the details.
I shall have no peace until I clear up my doubts. I am about to
travel; I go to Turkey, Asia, Greece, in search of models. I must
compare my picture with various types of Nature. It may be that I have
up _there_," he added, letting a smile of satisfaction flicker on his
lip, "Nature herself.
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