 Under Bette's controlling eye, the lackadaisical young artist grows more successful and productive.Finding joy in her new companion, Bette tells her niece, Hortense, of her "sweetheart" Wenceslas and of her happiness.Hortense, parched from a steady stream of ugly, dull, but wealthy, suitors, is intrigued by her aunt's romantic stories of the handsome artist who happens to be a lord and decides to hunt him down in secret and steal him away from her aunt for an affair.