Page:Pierre and Luce.djvu/53

Rh directed to her own address as well as to Pierre's; but she would not confess to herself a pinch of vexation. Pierre hardened his lips in order not to speak. But at last it was too much for him. She showed him a copy of a Florentine Raphael.

"But these are not its colors!" said he.

"Oh, well, that wouldn't be surprising," said she. "I didn't go and look at it. I took a photo."

"And didn't anybody object?"

"Who? My clients? They haven't been to look at it either. . . . And besides, even if they had seen it, they don't look so narrowly! The red, the green, the blue—they only see the fire in it. Sometimes I copy the original in colors, but I change the colors. . . . See here, for instance, this one . . ." (An angel by Murillo).

"Do you find it's better?"

"No, but it amused me. . . . And then, it's easier. . . . And besides, it's all the same to me. The essential thing is that this will sell. . . ."

At this last piece of boasting she stopped,