The story
The young artist had searched Paris for a suitable model to pose as a shepherdess in a new picture which he hoped would win him fame. But none of the models pleased him, and at last, feeling that he could do no justice to the picture, he decided to postpone his work and take a walking trip through France. In a little hamlet far removed from the city, the artist found the model for his picture, a beautiful peasant girl tending her sheep on the hillside. He tried to induce her to return with him to Paris, but she demurred, and he went back to Paris alone. But the girl thought often of the stories he had told her of the French capital, and the simple country life palled upon her, until one day she left her country home forever and journeyed to the great city. The artist received her joyfully. She was a great success as a model, and the painting made the artist famous.
As time passed, the liking that the girl had for the artist grew into love; but it was not reciprocated, for to the man she was merely a beautiful model. The model was the idol of Paris, but although many of her admirers were far richer than the artist she cared only for him. The artist gave his love to another woman and married her. When models cease to be young, they are no longer in demand, and this the former shepherdess learned all too soon. Slowly she sank in the social scale until at last she was glad to earn her living as a cleaner in an office building. One day the woman, now old, was sent into a studio building to scrub the floors. She entered a studio and commenced her work. A man sitting at an easel, painting, turned as she entered, and then seeing that it was only the scrub woman, continued his work. But the woman stood aghast, her heart struggling with conflicting emotions. For the artist was the young man whose reputation she had made, and whom she had loved in the years gone by. Her heart filled with yearning, she stretched out her arms to him as he sat, busily working at his painting; then as the realization of her position came to her, she picked up mop and pail and staggered out the studio and his life forever.
Summary from The Moving Picture World · 15 March 1913
