She knew exactly where to scoff and where to be enthusiastic, jeered
with all the ruthless slang of the Paris gamins at the pompously
mediocre sights recommended to the tourists' admiration by Baedeker,
and gave evidence of deep and true comprehension of all that was
really beautiful.
At the very beginning she dragged Wilhelm to a photographer's studio
and disclosed to him, when it was too late to beat a retreat, that
he was to be photographed. What for? A fancy of hers--she wanted to
have his likeness. Half-length, full-length, full-face, profile.
Only when the pictures were sent home did he discover, that she did
not want them for herself, but to send to her mother. It was high
time she should see what the man was like who alone made life worth
living for her only child. That she should draw her mother into an
affair of the kind of which women do not, as a rule, boast to their
families, seemed to him peculiarly bad taste. "What," he cried, "you
have told your mother the whole story?"
"My mother is a Spaniard, she will guess what one leaves unsaid."
"And you are not ashamed that she should know?"
"That is why I am sending her your likeness; she will then
understand that, on the contrary, I have every reason to be proud.
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