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She tries to smooth her breathing, the slight tremble in her fingers, hopes her reddened face will be taken as the result of the heat of the fire after the cold of the outdoors.

She busies herself, showing Rémy the easel where she wants the painting to rest, ensuring the mothers are comfortably seated.

She’s been longing for this moment and dreading it in equal measure.

Degas’s eyes narrow. “Are you not well, Berthe? You seem unsteady, not your usual contained self.”

“I’m perfectly fine, Edgar.” She turns to him with as much of a smile as she can muster. “Thank you for inquiring.”

This further arouses his suspicions. “Then why are you all aflutter? Flushed? Those fiery eyes darting everywhere and nowhere?”

Berthe looks at Renoir. “Am I all aflutter, Auguste? Or is Monsieur Degas once again making a fuss over nothing?”

“I would not take his words very seriously.” Renoir grins at Degas. “The man’s only pleasure is to be cantankerous.”

Degas jumps to his feet and throws his arms wide. “Renoir, that is not so!” he roars. “I am a genial bear of a man, loved by many, if not all.”

Everyone laughs, including the mothers, and Berthe dares a glance at édouard. His eyes shift from Degas to her. He nods slightly, then turns back to his easel.

The day is frigid with bits of blowing snow, so Cornélie and Antoinette don’t take their usual stroll.

Instead, they huddle together close to the fire, drinking tea and chattering while the artists work.

Berthe had feared this, given the horrid cold that has overtaken Paris, and is frustrated because édouard has not spoken a word or moved from his spot since her arrival, apparently consumed by his painting.

Two Sisters is getting somewhat better. With the oil paint, she’s loosened the girls’ poses, leaning Yves slightly toward Edma.

A little thing, but strangely effective in emphasizing the tenderness of their relationship.

And she’s made the illumination more indirect, homier, which she believes adds a sense of intimacy.

Teasing the light, as M. Corot taught her, taming it to her own needs.

But she worries it’s too superficial, saying little about the world beyond domestic harmony. The curse of womanhood.

After working for over an hour, she stands, wraps her shawl over her shoulders, and walks around the studio, rubbing her hands together, further smearing them with paint.

Antoinette’s maid stopped by earlier, bringing tea and pastries, and Cornélie pours Berthe a cup and forces a piece of coconut cake on her.

She eats the cake to avoid her mother’s reprimands, although her stomach is jumpy with édouard so near and reticent.

Teacup in hand, she wanders over to a corner with two large windows, which Degas has permanently appropriated as his own.

He’s working from a number of sketches of ballet dancers rehearsing for a performance.

Even this early, she can see it will be extraordinary.

Instead of a broad and majestic display of costume and choreography, each dancer’s face is individually highlighted, many with expressions of fatigue and boredom.

The interior reality of the ballet rather than the outward splendor the audience experiences. No superficiality here.

She stands behind Renoir, who’s putting the finishing touches on a painting that also depicts the life of Parisians as it is lived.

The subject is the Frog Pond, a resort on the banks of the Seine.

Flecks of sun glitter on the river, flinging pinpricks of brightness across the canvas.

Ordinary men and women in everyday dress cluster tightly together on a dock amidst the boats passing in the background, delighting in each other’s company.

Berthe is impressed with his flowing brushwork and envious of his freedom to paint such a carefree and spontaneous scene.

It isn’t proper for a woman of her class to paint a man she’s not related to, nor anyone outside her social circle.

And therefore painting the boisterous joy of a party that includes men, and possibly women of lesser repute, is beyond her cloistered reach.

She nonchalantly makes her way to édouard.

He’s completely engrossed, palette gripped in one hand, a brush in the other, a thinner brush clamped in his teeth, oblivious to her presence.

She knows this state well, the complete subjugation of the outside world to the work, and she tries not to take offense.

But she’s close enough to feel the torridness of his frenzy, to inhale the odor of his skin mixed with oil and turpentine, and cannot help but wonder if he is as unaware of her as he appears.

Her eyes turn to his easel, and she freezes.

It’s a painting of Suzanne sitting at the piano in Antoinette’s parlor, fingers resting on the keys, head slightly tilted as she gazes rapturously at the sheet music before her.

She’s elegantly dressed in a glowing black gown, her hair tied back in a chignon, a ribbon at her neck.

The painting is decidedly representational, except that it does not represent Suzanne as she actually is.

Although she does play the piano, it is an idealization of her, a false rendition.

In the picture, she is at least fifty pounds lighter and her features have been molded into an attractive face, which she does not possess.

Could this be how édouard sees his wife?

And if this is so, then she, Berthe, has been taken for a fool.

When he finally turns toward her, she’s on her way back to her easel.

“I FEAR EDGAR may have been right yesterday,” Berthe tells Cornélie when she comes into her room to inquire as to why she’s still in bed this late in the morning. “Maybe I have come down with something.” Which she has not. She wants to hide away with her shame.

Cornélie gently sweeps falling curls from Berthe’s forehead and presses her lips there.

When she stands, she studies her daughter’s face.

“There is no fever I can sense, but you don’t look well.

Perhaps the long day at édouard’s studio has taken a toll on your health.

I will have Marie bring you some ox-blood broth. ”

Berthe closes her eyes. “Thank you, Maman,” she says, although she has no intention of eating that vile soup, which tastes like metal. “I think I’ll rest for the remainder of the day.”

“I have invited Degas for luncheon, and I do so hope you will be able to join us. I’m sure he accepted so readily because he expected to spend the time with you, not me.”

Berthe reconsiders. Degas is an astute observer of human behavior, as well as a lover of gossip, and he might have insight into édouard’s painting.

At the least, he’ll be eager to discuss the absurdity of the depiction of Suzanne as thin and attractive.

His witty take on this will hopefully prove to be a salve.

“It’s possible I’ll feel stronger after the broth,” she says. “And if not, perhaps you will allow him upstairs to sit with me for a little while.” As her mother views Degas as no threat to Berthe’s virtue, due to his years as a flamboyantly single man, she assumes Cornélie will acquiesce.

Cornélie leans back over Berthe, this time to kiss her on the cheek. “I’ll return to see how you are in a little while, my darling.”

Berthe feels a touch of guilt for worrying her mother, who frets endlessly over her health, but the thought of Degas has perked her up.

Going down for lunch will not do, given her pretend illness just two hours before it’s to be served.

But after disposing of the soup in the chamber pot, it might be believable that she feels well enough to dress and meet with him in the upstairs sitting room.

When Degas climbs the stairs after a quick lunch with her mother, he kisses her hand. “So you are ill, my dear Berthe,” he says. Then he adds with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes, “I cannot tell you how sorry I am to hear this.”

She pulls the blanket resting on the back of the chair over her shoulders. “As you so rightly noted yesterday.”

“Ah, I did, did I not? Most astute of me.” He sits in the chair next to hers and considers her closely. “Although I must admit I see nothing of the trembling and flushness I observed then. And your eyes are quite calm and focused.”

“Oh, Edgar, please spare me your idle banter.”

“It isn’t idle banter, Berthe. You are swimming in dangerous waters.”

It is impossible to elude his keen eye. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

He raises an eyebrow. “I don’t believe that any more than I believe you are sick. As I have noted before, you are rather transparent with your emotions.”

“What am I to do with you, you wicked man?”

“Listen to me. Heed my advice.”

“What do you think of édouard’s painting of his lovely wife?”

“So be it,” he says to make it clear that he’s on to her, then bursts into an impish grin.

“Can you believe? It’s completely preposterous, ludicrous.

I daresay even Suzanne will not be pleased, as it could be taken as an insult to be so misrepresented as a slender beauty when she’s aware she is neither. ”

“Do you think this could be how édouard perceives her? Not as she is, but as a slender beauty?”

Degas’s eyes soften with rare compassion, and he shakes his head. “My dear Berthe, that is not the derivation of this painting.”

“What do you mean?”

“As you are not privy to our more explicit conversations at Café de Bade, you have not heard of my quarrel with édouard.”

“I have seen no indication of this at the studio.”

“That’s because we have reconciled, but this painting of Suzanne is his parting jab at me.”

Berthe throws the blanket off and leans toward him. “Parting jab?”

He stretches out in his chair. “édouard asked me to do a portrait of the two of them, which I did, and named it, very cleverly I think, Monsieur and Madame édouard Manet .”

She clenches her jaw when she hears the title. If only it were a picture of édouard and her, not édouard and Suzanne. Fortunately, Degas is too captivated by his own story to notice her reaction.

“I thought it was a rather good composition and likeness, but when édouard saw it, he did not agree. He accused me of making a mockery of his wife. He was so livid he took a knife and slashed Suzanne out of the canvas.”

“He destroyed your painting?” she asks, astounded. It is beyond belief for one artist to deface another’s work, nearly equivalent to defacing the artist himself.

“He did just that. He thought the figure of Madame Manet detracted from the effect. But I don’t, and I’m going to try to paint her back in again.”

“You have the pieces in your possession?”

“I had a fearful shock when I saw it like that. I picked it up and walked off, without even saying goodbye.”

“Oh, Edgar, of course you did.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t have portrayed her that way,” he says with startling candor, not one to be self-reflective, particularly in a negative way.

“Manet knows Suzanne is derided for her girth and unsightliness, and although there is no love lost there, she is still his wife. Perhaps in his shoes, I might have done the same.”

“You are certain there is no love lost?”

Degas takes both of her hands. “I wish I could tell you otherwise, my innocent Berthe. It would be far better for you if their marriage were a happy one. But it is not, and I fear this will be your downfall.”

Rather than scaring her, which was no doubt Degas’s intention, she’s elated.