Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/86

76 reared. It was very well for Waterlow to say that to be a genuine man it was necessary to be a little of a brute; his friend was willing, in theory, to assent even to that. The difficulty was in application, in practice—as to which the painter declared that all that would be simple enough if it only didn't take so much account of the marchioness, the countess and—what was the other one?—the duchess. These young amenities were exchanged between the pair (while Gaston explained, almost as eagerly as if he were scoring a point, that the other one was only a baronne), during that brief journey to Spain of which mention has already been made, during the later weeks of the summer, after their return (the young men spent a fortnight together on the coast of Brittany), and above all during the autumn, when they were settled in Paris for the winter, when Mr. Dosson had reappeared, according to the engagement with his daughters, when the sittings for the portrait had multiplied (the painter was unscrupulous as to the number he demanded), and the work itself, born under a happy star, took on more and more the aspect of a masterpiece. It was at Grenada that Gaston really broke out; there, one balmy night, he communicated to his companion that he would marry Francina Dosson or would never marry any one. The declaration was the more striking as it came after an interval; many days had elapsed