I--I see her!" he cried. "She is wondrously beautiful!"
At this moment Poussin heard the weeping of Gillette as she stood,
forgotten, in a corner.
"What troubles thee, my darling?" asked the painter, becoming once
more a lover.
"Kill me!" she answered. "I should be infamous if I still loved thee,
for I despise thee. I admire thee; but thou hast filled me with
horror. I love, and yet already I hate thee."
While Poussin listened to Gillette, Frenhofer drew a green curtain
before his Catherine, with the grave composure of a jeweller locking
his drawers when he thinks that thieves are near him. He cast at the
two painters a look which was profoundly dissimulating, full of
contempt and suspicion; then, with convulsive haste, he silently
pushed them through the door of his atelier. When they reached the
threshold of his house he said to them, "Adieu, my little friends."
The tone of this farewell chilled the two painters with fear.
* * * * *
On the morrow Porbus, alarmed, went again to visit Frenhofer, and
found that he had died during the night, after having burned his
paintings.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Hidden Masterpiece, by Honore de Balzac
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