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She drops into a chair, unmoored by his praise. Could he be saying these things just to lift her spirits? Had Cornélie warned him not to be negative? “I worry it’s too traditional, too conventional.” She purses her lips. “Too feminine.”

Degas takes another chair. “It is those things, and I agree that it lacks the boldness of some of your other paintings, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a lesser work.”

“But it is. And I fear it and I won’t be taken seriously.”

He considers this, picks up a handful of the browning petals from the floor, drops them to one side of the vase.

“What if you slightly altered the bottom left here? A few petals scattered and dying on the table? This would contrast with the large peony in full bloom, add tension, a larger story. Life and death.”

She sees it as he describes it, as she will make it. “You’re brilliant, Edgar. Thank you. That’s exactly what it needs.” She reaches over and lightly touches his knee. “And you are a generous and thoughtful friend.”

Degas shifts uneasily under her compliments. “I’m struggling with my latest too.”

“Tell me.”

He describes his painting of a racetrack in Saint-Cloud, a western suburb of Paris. An oversized canvas depicting a furious competition, jockeys and horses straining toward victory, the stands filled with men and women urging them on.

“I want to explore the movement and motion, the long strides of the horses,” he explains.

“The jockeys hunched and hurtling forward, the crowd standing and cheering. But my efforts are too feverish. The picture is overfull and lacks focus.” He frowns.

“But it’s exactly this teeming frenzy, the crowd’s and the horses’ intense desire to win, that I’m trying to express. ”

“So there’s too much going on in the actual scene, maybe too much going on in your painting?”

“Exactly.”

“Could you narrow the composition?” she suggests. “Maybe include just a few of the horses, put only a slice of the crowd off to one side of the canvas?”

“That will diminish the dynamism.”

“Maybe, but a tighter view might allow you to pinpoint the detail of the jockeys’ expressions, catch the fierceness of their determination.

” She’s excited by her advice, by the idea of painting a bustling scene on a large canvas.

“The same could be done with the horses. The power of their bodies, their sweat, the thrust of their muscles driving forward.”

Now it’s Degas who touches Berthe’s knee. “You have as good an eye for dramatic scenes as you do for your more delicate domestic ones.”

“If only I could paint them.” Berthe sighs. “How can it be a disgrace for me to even think of such a thing, let alone do it? Men and horses and public scenes. Why would this bring shame on me and my family, while there is nothing shameful if a man does the same? What is there to be ashamed of?”

Degas studies her, his eyes troubled. “I don’t know, Berthe. I wish I could tell you, and even more, I wish it weren’t so.” He bows his head.

“I fear that without the ability to expand and choose my own subjects, to push boundaries, I’ll never become a real artist.”

“Nonsense,” he declares, clearly astounded by her comment. “You are a real artist. One of the best of us, with so much more to offer, so much more greatness to achieve.”

She points to the peonies. “How can I do that when I’m consigned to the small space of a woman’s life on canvases as small as my subjects? Portraits, mothers and children, gardens. Nothing beyond.”

“You paint landscapes, and they can be very dramatic, as many of yours are.”

It’s amazing to her how blind her good friend and fellow painter is to her boundaries, both in her life and in her art. “Yes,” she responds, aware that nothing she can say will help him see what’s invisible to him. “Maybe I should do more of those.”

ONCE BERTHE BEGINS painting at Manet’s studio, her anxiety about the quality of her work ebbs.

The other artists are full of compliments and thoughtful critiques, and working with them to move beyond classical representation into the immediacy of the captured moment is invigorating.

Although watching them paint racetracks and backstages and parties, where men and women enjoy themselves, chafes.

She’s working on a domestic scene, a young woman reading by a window opening onto a garden.

Berthe’s rebellion is in her use of bold, swirling brushstrokes to suggest the tumultuous wind throwing the flowers and leaves outside into motion.

As well as the tumult within the girl. No acquiescent female here.

She’s trying to create tension between her subject’s posture and her facial expression, indicating that, along with the furious movement of the garden, she isn’t as demure as she may appear to be.

The other artists, especially Manet, praise her for turning what might have been an unremarkable portrait into a moody drama.

She still misses Edma, but not as desperately.

Cornélie has become so comfortable in the studio that sometimes she and Antoinette take a walk outside, leaving Berthe alone with the men.

They’re never gone long, but Berthe treasures every second of freedom from their watchful gazes.

And Manet takes advantage of their absences to stand by her, bending in toward her easel, often touching his shoulder to hers.

Today, when the mothers go out for a stroll, Manet steps up and points the back of his brush at the light blues and sweeping greens that give dimension to the receding garden.

“How you capture the play of light and shadow here is inspired, how it prances from one plane to another.” He edges closer and whispers, “You must show me how to do this, my melancholy beauty.”

Manet’s lips are close to her ear, his breath warm on her neck. She closes her eyes and takes in the intoxicating scent of him. When he steps away and she opens her eyes, Degas is watching her with his signature smirk.