The night Hubert Falcroft called at Chalfontaine Mademoiselle Elise
Evergonde told him that her cousin, Madame Mineur, and Berenice had gone
in the direction of the pool. He had walked over from the station,
preferring the open air to the stuffy train. So a few vigorous steps
brought to his view mother and daughter as they slowly moved, encircling
each other's waist. The painter paused and noted the general loveliness
of the picture; the setting sun had splashed the blue basin overhead
with delicate pinks, and in the fretted edges of some high floating
cloud-fleece there was a glint of fire. The smooth grass parquet swept
gracefully to the semicircle of dark green trees, against the foliage of
which the virginal white of the gowns was transposed to an ivory tone by
the blue and green keys in sky and forest.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "paint in the foreground a few peacocks
languidly dragging their gorgeous tails, and you have a Watteau or a
Fragonard--no, a Monticelli! Only, Monticelli would have made the
peacocks the central motive with the women and trees as an arabesque.
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