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 a subtlety which could never be imitated. But sometimes, not often, a piece of his coloring really looked a little like the original and then he was secretly very happy.

Painting those three girls in different poses day after day for weeks and months was splendid training for him. So were the long talks with St. André and the two assistants—Jean Duprés and Armand de Ville.

St. André assured the eager young men that they would all be successful painters. He prided himself on his ability to pick and to develop talent. He had never missed his guess, he said. He had even succeeded in teaching a young woman to paint, but she had come to a bad end. That was not his fault. But it had been a great disappointment.

"So few women," he said, "ever succeed in doing anything worth while. But this girl was a wonder. If she had been ugly she would have become a great master. But she was beautiful. She undertook the portrait of a young baron who was rich and a great figure at Longchamps. In the midst of the sittings they eloped to the Riviera. She left him for a Russian prince who flattered her, and when she had changed hands a good many times she took to narcotics and her talent died in her breast. But women do not appreciate talent. They neither appreciate it in themselves if they