Renoir now stands alone by a grouping of his paintings, nervously pacing and looking around as if expecting people to come by at any moment to admire his talent.

“Finally a friendly face and someone to talk with, Mademoiselle Dobbins,” he greets me, smiling and apparently glad to have company. “Our little group of artists seems to have failed in our plan to introduce our new art to Paris.”

“Is it so bad? It’s only the first night.”

Standing by him, I suddenly grab his arm for support, and begin to feel weak. I point at his painting of me. “There was no man in your painting when I posed on the riverbank,” I gasp. “But now…”

“Oui, I added him later in the studio,” He interrupts me.

“The man looks like Frederic Bazille.”

“Voilà! Indeed, it is Frederic,” he says, a broad smile on his face. “What do you think?”

My mouth is so dry I can’t speak. My limbs feel weak. I grab his arm to keep from fainting. “But he was…” I can’t get the words out.

“Already dead. Yes, I know,” he finishes my thought. “But I had sketched him several times when we worked together, so it was an easy addition. My homage to him.”

Still, at a loss for words, I look from him to the painting and back, my eyes misting. “It is a shock to see him again,” I finally tell him when I regain my composure, dabbing at the corners of my eyes with my fingers.

“I know you miss him,” he says in an unusually gentle voice, draping his arm over my shoulder and nudging me toward him as if we were sweethearts. “I do too. He was the best of us all.”