Chapter Five.

Chapter Five.Lady Grayson’s Purse.With one quick motion, Armstrong threw Valentina back into her seat, and snatched up palette and brushes, mad with rage and shame, as he made an effort to go on painting. For the drawing-room door had been opened with a good deal of rattling of the handle, and he expected that the next minute he would have to turn and face the husband.But it was a woman’s voice, full of irony and sarcasm, and he turned sharply, to see that the Contessa sat back in her chair with a strangely angry light in her dark eyes, gazing at Lady Grayson.“Pray forgive me, dear,” said the latter mockingly. “So sorry to disturb you. I was obliged to come back, for I have lost my purse. Did I leave it here?”“How could you have left it here?” said the Contessa coldly, as she quivered beneath her friend’s gaze.“I thought, love, that perhaps I had drawn it out with my handkerchief. It is so tiresome to lose one’s purse; is it not, Mr Dale?”“Worse, madam, not to have one to lose,” said Armstrong, who was placing his brushes in their case.“How droll you are,” said Lady Grayson; “as if anybody except a beggar could be without a purse. But surely you have not done painting the portrait?”“Yes, Lady Grayson, I have done painting the portrait,” replied Dale gravely.“And all through my interruption. Oh, my dearest Valentina, how could I be so indiscreet as to come and interrupt your charming sitting.”“Would it be a sin to strangle this mocking wretch, who is triumphing over her shame and my disgrace?” thought Dale.The Contessa was silent, and the situation growing maddening, when Lady Grayson suddenly exclaimed—“Why, there! I told the dear Conte that I felt sure I had dropped it here; and when I am influenced about anything happening, as I was in this case, I am pretty sure to be right.”She said this meaningly, with a smile at the other actors in the scene, and then took a few steps toward the couch she had occupied, and, picking from it the missing purse, held it up in triumph, and with her eyes sparkling with malicious glee.“I am so glad,” she cried; “I was so sure. Goodbye once more, dearest Valentina. Good morning, Mr Dale. Oh, you fortunate man,” she continued, gazing at the canvas. “To paint like that. Ah, well, perhaps it may be my turn next,” she added, with a mocking glance at the Contessa. “What, you going too, Mr Dale? Then I did spoil the sitting.”“No, madam,” said Armstrong coldly; “your arrival was most opportune. Lady Dellatoria, my man shall come for the canvas.”Valentina darted a wildly reproachful look at him, which he met for a moment, flushed, and turned from with a shiver.“May I see you to your carriage, Lady Grayson?” he said.“Oh, thank you, Mr Dale: if you would. Goodbye, dearest,” she cried, with a triumphant mocking look at the fierce, beautiful face. “You must let me drop you at your studio, Mr Dale,” she continued; and as the door closed behind them, Valentina started from her chair to press her hands to her temples, uttering a low, piteous moan.“Cast off! and for her!” she cried wildly. “She has always been trying to lure him from me—him—my husband; and she could not rest in her suspicions without coming back.”She ran to the window to stand unseen, gazing down, and to her agony she saw Dale step into the carriage, take his seat beside Lady Grayson, and be carried off.Valentina turned from the window with her face convulsed, but it grew smooth and beautiful, and there was a dreamy look in her eyes, and a smile upon her parted, humid lips.“I am mad,” she said to herself, with a mocking laugh. “He care for her! Absurd! He loves me! In his brave fight he struggled hard, but—he loves me. His arms did hold me to his breast; his lips did press mine. And she?—poor weak fool, with her transparent trick, to return and play the spy. Let her know, and have a hold upon me, and defy me about Cesare. She will threaten me some day if I revile her. Poor fool! I am the stronger—stronger than ever now. I could defy the world, for, in spite of his cold looks, his anger against himself—he loves me.”She raised her eyes and stood looking straight before her for some moments, and then started, but recovered herself and smiled as she gazed at the figure before her in one of the mirror-filled panels of the room.For she saw reflected there a face and figure that she felt no man could resist, and the smile upon her face grew brighter, the dreamy look intensified, as she murmured—“At last! After these long, barren, weary years, love, the desire of a woman’s life;” and closing her eyes, she slowly extended her arms as, in a whisper soft as the breath of eve, she murmured, “At last! Come back to me, my love—my life—my god.”

With one quick motion, Armstrong threw Valentina back into her seat, and snatched up palette and brushes, mad with rage and shame, as he made an effort to go on painting. For the drawing-room door had been opened with a good deal of rattling of the handle, and he expected that the next minute he would have to turn and face the husband.

But it was a woman’s voice, full of irony and sarcasm, and he turned sharply, to see that the Contessa sat back in her chair with a strangely angry light in her dark eyes, gazing at Lady Grayson.

“Pray forgive me, dear,” said the latter mockingly. “So sorry to disturb you. I was obliged to come back, for I have lost my purse. Did I leave it here?”

“How could you have left it here?” said the Contessa coldly, as she quivered beneath her friend’s gaze.

“I thought, love, that perhaps I had drawn it out with my handkerchief. It is so tiresome to lose one’s purse; is it not, Mr Dale?”

“Worse, madam, not to have one to lose,” said Armstrong, who was placing his brushes in their case.

“How droll you are,” said Lady Grayson; “as if anybody except a beggar could be without a purse. But surely you have not done painting the portrait?”

“Yes, Lady Grayson, I have done painting the portrait,” replied Dale gravely.

“And all through my interruption. Oh, my dearest Valentina, how could I be so indiscreet as to come and interrupt your charming sitting.”

“Would it be a sin to strangle this mocking wretch, who is triumphing over her shame and my disgrace?” thought Dale.

The Contessa was silent, and the situation growing maddening, when Lady Grayson suddenly exclaimed—“Why, there! I told the dear Conte that I felt sure I had dropped it here; and when I am influenced about anything happening, as I was in this case, I am pretty sure to be right.”

She said this meaningly, with a smile at the other actors in the scene, and then took a few steps toward the couch she had occupied, and, picking from it the missing purse, held it up in triumph, and with her eyes sparkling with malicious glee.

“I am so glad,” she cried; “I was so sure. Goodbye once more, dearest Valentina. Good morning, Mr Dale. Oh, you fortunate man,” she continued, gazing at the canvas. “To paint like that. Ah, well, perhaps it may be my turn next,” she added, with a mocking glance at the Contessa. “What, you going too, Mr Dale? Then I did spoil the sitting.”

“No, madam,” said Armstrong coldly; “your arrival was most opportune. Lady Dellatoria, my man shall come for the canvas.”

Valentina darted a wildly reproachful look at him, which he met for a moment, flushed, and turned from with a shiver.

“May I see you to your carriage, Lady Grayson?” he said.

“Oh, thank you, Mr Dale: if you would. Goodbye, dearest,” she cried, with a triumphant mocking look at the fierce, beautiful face. “You must let me drop you at your studio, Mr Dale,” she continued; and as the door closed behind them, Valentina started from her chair to press her hands to her temples, uttering a low, piteous moan.

“Cast off! and for her!” she cried wildly. “She has always been trying to lure him from me—him—my husband; and she could not rest in her suspicions without coming back.”

She ran to the window to stand unseen, gazing down, and to her agony she saw Dale step into the carriage, take his seat beside Lady Grayson, and be carried off.

Valentina turned from the window with her face convulsed, but it grew smooth and beautiful, and there was a dreamy look in her eyes, and a smile upon her parted, humid lips.

“I am mad,” she said to herself, with a mocking laugh. “He care for her! Absurd! He loves me! In his brave fight he struggled hard, but—he loves me. His arms did hold me to his breast; his lips did press mine. And she?—poor weak fool, with her transparent trick, to return and play the spy. Let her know, and have a hold upon me, and defy me about Cesare. She will threaten me some day if I revile her. Poor fool! I am the stronger—stronger than ever now. I could defy the world, for, in spite of his cold looks, his anger against himself—he loves me.”

She raised her eyes and stood looking straight before her for some moments, and then started, but recovered herself and smiled as she gazed at the figure before her in one of the mirror-filled panels of the room.

For she saw reflected there a face and figure that she felt no man could resist, and the smile upon her face grew brighter, the dreamy look intensified, as she murmured—

“At last! After these long, barren, weary years, love, the desire of a woman’s life;” and closing her eyes, she slowly extended her arms as, in a whisper soft as the breath of eve, she murmured, “At last! Come back to me, my love—my life—my god.”

Chapter Six.What Pacey Saw in the Clouds.Three weeks soon pass in busy London, but to Armstrong Dale the twenty-one days which ensued after the scene at Portland Place were like months of misery.Stern in his resolve to avoid all further entanglement, and to keep faith to her whom in his heart of hearts he loved, he shut himself up in his studio, and made a desperate attack upon his great mythological picture, a broad high canvas, at which Keren-Happuch stared open-mouthed, when she went into the studio every morning “to do Mr Dale up”—a feat which consisted in brushing the fluff about from one corner to another, and resulted in a good deal of sniffing, and the lodging of more dust upon casts, ledges, furniture, and above all, upon Keren-Happuch’s by no means classical features, where it adhered, consequent upon a certain labour-and-exercise-produced moisture which exuded from the maiden’s skin.“I can’t help looking smudgy,” she used to say; and directly after, “Comin’, mum,” for her name was shouted in an acid voice by Mrs Dunster, the elderly lady who let the studio and rooms in Fitzroy Square to any artist who would take them for a time.But the poor little slavey was Keren-Happuch to that lady alone. To Armstrong she was always Miranda, on account of her friend, the dirty-white cat of the kitchen; to his artist friends such names as seemed good to them, and suited to their bizarre thoughts.To Armstrong one morning came Keren-Happuch, as he was painting out his previous day’s work upon his great picture, and she stood staring with her mouth open.“Oh, Mr Dale, sir, what a shame! What would Miss Montmorency say?”“What about, Miranda?”“You a-smudging out her beautiful figure as you took such pains to paint. Why, she was a-talking to me ’bout it, sir, when she was a-goin’ yesterday, and said she was goin’ to be Queen June-ho at the ’cademy.”“But she will not be, Miranda,” said Armstrong sadly; “it was execrable. Ah, my little lass, what a pity it is that you could not stand for the figure.”“Me, sir! Oh, my!” cried the girl, giggling. “Why, I’m a perfect sight. And, oh!—I couldn’t, you know. I mustn’t stop, sir. I on’y come to tell you I was opening the front top winder, and see your funny friend, Mr Pacey, go into Smithson’s. He always do before he comes here.”“Keren-Happuch!” came faintly from below.“Comin’, mum,” cried the girl, and she dashed out of the studio.“Poor, patient little drudge!” said Armstrong, half aloud. “Well washed, neatly clothed, spoken to kindly, and not worked to death, what a good faithful little lassie she would be for a house. I wish Cornel could see her, and see her with my eyes.”He turned sharply, for there was a step—a heavy step—on the stair, and the artist’s sad face brightened.“Good little prophetess too. Here’s old Joe at last. Where’s the incense-box?”He took a tobacco-jar from a cupboard and placed it upon the nearest table, just as the door opened and a big, heavy, rough, grey-haired man entered, nodded, and, placing his soft felt hat upon his heavy stick, dropped into an easy-chair.“Welcome, little stranger!” cried Armstrong merrily. “Why tarried the wheels of your chariot so long?”There was no answer, but the visitor fixed his deeply set piercing eyes upon his brother artist.“Was there a smoke somewhere last night, old lad, and the whisky of an evil brew?”“No!” said the visitor shortly.“Why, Joe, old lad, what’s the matter? Coin run out?”“No!”“But there is something, old fellow,” said Armstrong. “Can I help you?” And, passing his brush into the hand which held his palette, he grasped the other by the shoulder.“Don’t touch me,” cried the visitor angrily, and he struck Armstrong’s hand aside.There was a pause, and then the latter said gravely—“Joe, old fellow, I don’t want to pry into your affairs, but if I can counsel or help you, don’t shrink from asking. Can I do anything?”“Yes—much.”“Hah! that’s better,” cried Armstrong, as if relieved. “What’s the good of an Orestes, if P. does not come to him when he is in a hole! But you are upset. There’s no hurry. Fill your pipe, and give me a few words about my confounded picture while you calm down. Joe, old man, it’s mythological, and it’s going to turn out a myth. Isn’t there a woman in London who could sit for my Juno?”“Damn all women!” cried the visitor, in a deep hoarse tone.“Well, that’s rather too large an order, old fellow. Come, fill your pipe. Now, let’s have it. What’s wrong—landlady?”The eyes of the man to whom he had been attracted from his first arrival in London, the big, large-hearted, unsuccessful artist, who yet possessed more ability than any one he knew, and whose advice was eagerly sought by a large circle of rising painters, were fixed upon him so intently that the colour rose in Armstrong Dale’s cheeks, and, in spite of his self-control, the younger man looked conscious.“Then it’s all true,” said Pacey bitterly.“What’s all true?” cried Dale.“Armstrong, lad, I passed a bitter night, and I thought I would come on.”The young artist was silent, but his brow knit, and there was a twitching about the corner of his eyes.“I sat smoking hard—ounces of strong tobacco; and in the clouds I saw a frank, good-looking young fellow, engaged to as sweet and pure a woman as ever breathed, coming up to this hell or heaven, London, whichever one makes of it, and going wrong. Ulysses among the Sirens, lad; and they sang too sweetly for him—that is, one did. The temptation was terribly strong, and he went under.”Armstrong’s brow was dark as night now, and he drew his breath hard.“Do you know what that meant, Armstrong? You are silent. I’ll tell you. It meant breaking the heart of a true woman, and the wrecking of a man. He had ability—as a painter—and he could have made a name, but as soon as he woke from his mad dream, all was over. The zest had gone out of life. You know the song, lad—‘A kiss too long—and life is never the same again.’”“I made you my friend, Joe Pacey,” said Armstrong huskily, “but by what right do you dare to come preaching your parables here?”“Parable, man? It is the truth. Eight? I have a right to tell you what wrecked my life—the story of twenty years ago.”“Joe!”There was a gripping of hands.“Ah! That’s better. I tell you because history will repeat itself. Armstrong, lad, you have often talked to me of the one who is waiting and watching across the seas. Look at me—the wreck I am. For God’s sake—for hers—your own, don’t follow in my steps.”Neither spoke for a few minutes, and then with his voice changed—“I can’t humbug, Joe,” said Armstrong. “Of course I understand you. You mean about—my commission.”“Yes, and I did warn you, lad. It is the talk of every set I’ve been into lately. There is nothing against her, but her position with that miserable hound, Dellatoria, is well-known. He insults her with his mistresses time after time. Her beauty renders her open to scandal, and they say what I feared is true.”“What? Speak out.”“That she is madly taken with our handsome young artist.”“They say that?”“Yes, and I gave them the lie. Last night I had it, though more definitely. I was at the Van Hagues—all artistic London goes there, and a spiteful, vindictive woman contrived, by hints and innuendoes, as she knew I was your friend, to let me know the state of affairs.”“Lady Grayson?”“The same.”“The Jezebel!”“And worse, lad. But, Armstrong, my lad—I have come then too late?”Pride and resentment kept Dale silent for a few moments, and then he said huskily—“It is false.”“But it is the talk of London, my lad, and it means when it comes to Dellatoria’s ears—Bah! a miserable organ-grinder by rights—endless trouble. Perhaps a challenge. Brutes who have no right to name the word honour yell most about their own, as they call it.”“It is not true—or—there, I tell you it is not true.”“Not true?”For answer Armstrong walked to the side of the studio, took a large canvas from where it stood face to the wall, and turned it to show the Contessa’s face half painted.“Good,” said Pacey involuntarily, “but—”“Don’t ask me any more, Joe,” said Dale. “Be satisfied that history is not going to repeat itself. I have declined to go on with the commission.”“Armstrong, lad,” cried Pacey, springing from his seat, and clapping his hands on the young man’s shoulders to look him intently in the eyes. “Bah!” he literally roared, “and I spoiled my night’s rest, and—Here: got any whisky, old man? ’Bacco? Oh, here we are;” and he dragged a large black briar-root, well burned, from his breast and began to fill it. Then, taking a common box of matches from his pocket—a box he had bought an hour before from a beggar in the street, he threw himself back in the big chair, lifted one leg, and gave the match a sharp rub on his trousers, lit up, sending forth volumes of cloud, and in an entirely different tone of voice, said quite blusteringly—“Now then, about that goddess canvas; let’s have a smell at it. Hah! yes, you want a Juno—a living, breathing divinity, all beauty, scorn, passion, hatred. No, my lad, there are plenty of flesh subjects who would do as well as one of Titian’s, and you could beat an Etty into fits; but there isn’t a model in London who could sit for the divine face you want. Your only chance is to evolve it from your mind as you paint another head.”“Yes; perhaps you are right,” said Dale dreamily. “Sure I am. There, go in and win, my lad. You’ll do it.—Hah! that’s good whisky.—My dear old fellow, I might have known. I ought to have trusted you.”“Don’t say any more about it.”“But I must, to ease my mind. I ought to have known that my young Samson would not yield to any Delilah, and be shorn of his manly locks.—Yes, that’s capital whisky. I haven’t had a drop since yesterday afternoon. A toast: ‘Confound the wrong woman.’ Hang them,” he continued after a long draught, “they’re always coming to you with rosy apples in their hands or cheeks, and saying, ‘Have a bite,’ You don’t want to paint portraits. You can paint angels from clay to bring you cash and fame. Aha, my goddess of beauty and brightness, I salute thee, Bella Donna, in Hippocrene!”“Oh, do adone, Mr Pacey,” said the lady addressed to wit, Keren-Happuch. “I never do know what you mean, I declare,”—(sniff)—“I wouldn’t come into the studio when you’re here if I wasn’t obliged. Please, Mr Dale, sir, here’s that French Mossoo gentleman. He says, his compliments, and are you too busy to see him?”“No, Hebe the fair, he is not,” cried Pacey. “Tell him there is a symposium on the way, and he is to ascend.”“A which, sir? Sym—sym—”“Sym—whisky, Bella Donna.”The girl glanced at Dale, who nodded his head, and she hurried out. The door opened the next minute to admit a slight little man, most carefully dressed, and whose keen, refined features, essentially French, were full of animation.“Ah, you smoke, and are at rest,” he said. “Then I am welcome. Dear boys, both of you. And the picture?”He stood, cigarette in teeth, gazing at the large canvas for a few moments.“Excellent! So good!” he cried. “Ah, Dale, my friend, you would be great, but you do so paint backwards.”“Eh?” cried Pacey.“I mean, my faith, he was much more in advance a month ago. There was a goddess here. Where is she now?”“Behind the clouds,” said Pacey, forming one of a goodly size; and the others helped in a more modest way, as an animated conversation ensued upon art, Pacey giving his opinions loudly, and with the decision of a judge, while the young Frenchman listened to his criticism, much of it being directed at a flower-painting he had in progress.The debate was at its height, when the little maid again appeared with a note in her hand.“Aha!” cried Pacey, who was in the highest spirits—“maid of honour to the duchess—the flower of her sex again. Hah! how sweet the perfume of her presence wafted to my sense of smell.”“Oh, do adone, please, Mr Pacey, sir. You’re always making game of me. I’ll tell missus you call her the duchess—see if I don’t. It ain’t me as smells: it’s this here letter, quite strong. Please, Mr Dale, sir, it was left by that lady in her carriage.”“Keren-Happuch!” came from below stairs as the girl handed Dale the note; and his countenance changed as he involuntarily turned his eyes to his friend.“Keren-Happuch!” came again.“Comin’, mum,” shouted the girl, thrusting her head for a moment through the ajar door, and turning back again.“Said there wasn’t no answer, sir.”“Keren-Happuch!”“A call from the Duchess of Fitzroy Square,” said Pacey merrily.“No, sir, it was that Hightalian lady, her as is painted there,” said the girl innocently, and pointing to the canvas leaning against the wall, as she ran out.“Confound her!” roared Pacey, springing to his feet, and turning upon his friend, with his eyes flashing beneath his shaggy brows; “is there no such thing as truth in this cursed world?”“What do you mean?” cried Dale hotly, as he crushed the scented note in his hand.“Samson and Delilah,” said Pacey, with savage mockery in his tones. “Here, Leronde, lad,” he continued, taking up his glass, “a toast for you—Vive la gallantry. Bah!”He lifted the glass high above his head, but did not drink. He gave Armstrong a fierce, contemptuous look, and dashed the glass into the grate, where it was shivered to atoms.

Three weeks soon pass in busy London, but to Armstrong Dale the twenty-one days which ensued after the scene at Portland Place were like months of misery.

Stern in his resolve to avoid all further entanglement, and to keep faith to her whom in his heart of hearts he loved, he shut himself up in his studio, and made a desperate attack upon his great mythological picture, a broad high canvas, at which Keren-Happuch stared open-mouthed, when she went into the studio every morning “to do Mr Dale up”—a feat which consisted in brushing the fluff about from one corner to another, and resulted in a good deal of sniffing, and the lodging of more dust upon casts, ledges, furniture, and above all, upon Keren-Happuch’s by no means classical features, where it adhered, consequent upon a certain labour-and-exercise-produced moisture which exuded from the maiden’s skin.

“I can’t help looking smudgy,” she used to say; and directly after, “Comin’, mum,” for her name was shouted in an acid voice by Mrs Dunster, the elderly lady who let the studio and rooms in Fitzroy Square to any artist who would take them for a time.

But the poor little slavey was Keren-Happuch to that lady alone. To Armstrong she was always Miranda, on account of her friend, the dirty-white cat of the kitchen; to his artist friends such names as seemed good to them, and suited to their bizarre thoughts.

To Armstrong one morning came Keren-Happuch, as he was painting out his previous day’s work upon his great picture, and she stood staring with her mouth open.

“Oh, Mr Dale, sir, what a shame! What would Miss Montmorency say?”

“What about, Miranda?”

“You a-smudging out her beautiful figure as you took such pains to paint. Why, she was a-talking to me ’bout it, sir, when she was a-goin’ yesterday, and said she was goin’ to be Queen June-ho at the ’cademy.”

“But she will not be, Miranda,” said Armstrong sadly; “it was execrable. Ah, my little lass, what a pity it is that you could not stand for the figure.”

“Me, sir! Oh, my!” cried the girl, giggling. “Why, I’m a perfect sight. And, oh!—I couldn’t, you know. I mustn’t stop, sir. I on’y come to tell you I was opening the front top winder, and see your funny friend, Mr Pacey, go into Smithson’s. He always do before he comes here.”

“Keren-Happuch!” came faintly from below.

“Comin’, mum,” cried the girl, and she dashed out of the studio.

“Poor, patient little drudge!” said Armstrong, half aloud. “Well washed, neatly clothed, spoken to kindly, and not worked to death, what a good faithful little lassie she would be for a house. I wish Cornel could see her, and see her with my eyes.”

He turned sharply, for there was a step—a heavy step—on the stair, and the artist’s sad face brightened.

“Good little prophetess too. Here’s old Joe at last. Where’s the incense-box?”

He took a tobacco-jar from a cupboard and placed it upon the nearest table, just as the door opened and a big, heavy, rough, grey-haired man entered, nodded, and, placing his soft felt hat upon his heavy stick, dropped into an easy-chair.

“Welcome, little stranger!” cried Armstrong merrily. “Why tarried the wheels of your chariot so long?”

There was no answer, but the visitor fixed his deeply set piercing eyes upon his brother artist.

“Was there a smoke somewhere last night, old lad, and the whisky of an evil brew?”

“No!” said the visitor shortly.

“Why, Joe, old lad, what’s the matter? Coin run out?”

“No!”

“But there is something, old fellow,” said Armstrong. “Can I help you?” And, passing his brush into the hand which held his palette, he grasped the other by the shoulder.

“Don’t touch me,” cried the visitor angrily, and he struck Armstrong’s hand aside.

There was a pause, and then the latter said gravely—

“Joe, old fellow, I don’t want to pry into your affairs, but if I can counsel or help you, don’t shrink from asking. Can I do anything?”

“Yes—much.”

“Hah! that’s better,” cried Armstrong, as if relieved. “What’s the good of an Orestes, if P. does not come to him when he is in a hole! But you are upset. There’s no hurry. Fill your pipe, and give me a few words about my confounded picture while you calm down. Joe, old man, it’s mythological, and it’s going to turn out a myth. Isn’t there a woman in London who could sit for my Juno?”

“Damn all women!” cried the visitor, in a deep hoarse tone.

“Well, that’s rather too large an order, old fellow. Come, fill your pipe. Now, let’s have it. What’s wrong—landlady?”

The eyes of the man to whom he had been attracted from his first arrival in London, the big, large-hearted, unsuccessful artist, who yet possessed more ability than any one he knew, and whose advice was eagerly sought by a large circle of rising painters, were fixed upon him so intently that the colour rose in Armstrong Dale’s cheeks, and, in spite of his self-control, the younger man looked conscious.

“Then it’s all true,” said Pacey bitterly.

“What’s all true?” cried Dale.

“Armstrong, lad, I passed a bitter night, and I thought I would come on.”

The young artist was silent, but his brow knit, and there was a twitching about the corner of his eyes.

“I sat smoking hard—ounces of strong tobacco; and in the clouds I saw a frank, good-looking young fellow, engaged to as sweet and pure a woman as ever breathed, coming up to this hell or heaven, London, whichever one makes of it, and going wrong. Ulysses among the Sirens, lad; and they sang too sweetly for him—that is, one did. The temptation was terribly strong, and he went under.”

Armstrong’s brow was dark as night now, and he drew his breath hard.

“Do you know what that meant, Armstrong? You are silent. I’ll tell you. It meant breaking the heart of a true woman, and the wrecking of a man. He had ability—as a painter—and he could have made a name, but as soon as he woke from his mad dream, all was over. The zest had gone out of life. You know the song, lad—‘A kiss too long—and life is never the same again.’”

“I made you my friend, Joe Pacey,” said Armstrong huskily, “but by what right do you dare to come preaching your parables here?”

“Parable, man? It is the truth. Eight? I have a right to tell you what wrecked my life—the story of twenty years ago.”

“Joe!”

There was a gripping of hands.

“Ah! That’s better. I tell you because history will repeat itself. Armstrong, lad, you have often talked to me of the one who is waiting and watching across the seas. Look at me—the wreck I am. For God’s sake—for hers—your own, don’t follow in my steps.”

Neither spoke for a few minutes, and then with his voice changed—

“I can’t humbug, Joe,” said Armstrong. “Of course I understand you. You mean about—my commission.”

“Yes, and I did warn you, lad. It is the talk of every set I’ve been into lately. There is nothing against her, but her position with that miserable hound, Dellatoria, is well-known. He insults her with his mistresses time after time. Her beauty renders her open to scandal, and they say what I feared is true.”

“What? Speak out.”

“That she is madly taken with our handsome young artist.”

“They say that?”

“Yes, and I gave them the lie. Last night I had it, though more definitely. I was at the Van Hagues—all artistic London goes there, and a spiteful, vindictive woman contrived, by hints and innuendoes, as she knew I was your friend, to let me know the state of affairs.”

“Lady Grayson?”

“The same.”

“The Jezebel!”

“And worse, lad. But, Armstrong, my lad—I have come then too late?”

Pride and resentment kept Dale silent for a few moments, and then he said huskily—

“It is false.”

“But it is the talk of London, my lad, and it means when it comes to Dellatoria’s ears—Bah! a miserable organ-grinder by rights—endless trouble. Perhaps a challenge. Brutes who have no right to name the word honour yell most about their own, as they call it.”

“It is not true—or—there, I tell you it is not true.”

“Not true?”

For answer Armstrong walked to the side of the studio, took a large canvas from where it stood face to the wall, and turned it to show the Contessa’s face half painted.

“Good,” said Pacey involuntarily, “but—”

“Don’t ask me any more, Joe,” said Dale. “Be satisfied that history is not going to repeat itself. I have declined to go on with the commission.”

“Armstrong, lad,” cried Pacey, springing from his seat, and clapping his hands on the young man’s shoulders to look him intently in the eyes. “Bah!” he literally roared, “and I spoiled my night’s rest, and—Here: got any whisky, old man? ’Bacco? Oh, here we are;” and he dragged a large black briar-root, well burned, from his breast and began to fill it. Then, taking a common box of matches from his pocket—a box he had bought an hour before from a beggar in the street, he threw himself back in the big chair, lifted one leg, and gave the match a sharp rub on his trousers, lit up, sending forth volumes of cloud, and in an entirely different tone of voice, said quite blusteringly—

“Now then, about that goddess canvas; let’s have a smell at it. Hah! yes, you want a Juno—a living, breathing divinity, all beauty, scorn, passion, hatred. No, my lad, there are plenty of flesh subjects who would do as well as one of Titian’s, and you could beat an Etty into fits; but there isn’t a model in London who could sit for the divine face you want. Your only chance is to evolve it from your mind as you paint another head.”

“Yes; perhaps you are right,” said Dale dreamily. “Sure I am. There, go in and win, my lad. You’ll do it.—Hah! that’s good whisky.—My dear old fellow, I might have known. I ought to have trusted you.”

“Don’t say any more about it.”

“But I must, to ease my mind. I ought to have known that my young Samson would not yield to any Delilah, and be shorn of his manly locks.—Yes, that’s capital whisky. I haven’t had a drop since yesterday afternoon. A toast: ‘Confound the wrong woman.’ Hang them,” he continued after a long draught, “they’re always coming to you with rosy apples in their hands or cheeks, and saying, ‘Have a bite,’ You don’t want to paint portraits. You can paint angels from clay to bring you cash and fame. Aha, my goddess of beauty and brightness, I salute thee, Bella Donna, in Hippocrene!”

“Oh, do adone, Mr Pacey,” said the lady addressed to wit, Keren-Happuch. “I never do know what you mean, I declare,”—(sniff)—“I wouldn’t come into the studio when you’re here if I wasn’t obliged. Please, Mr Dale, sir, here’s that French Mossoo gentleman. He says, his compliments, and are you too busy to see him?”

“No, Hebe the fair, he is not,” cried Pacey. “Tell him there is a symposium on the way, and he is to ascend.”

“A which, sir? Sym—sym—”

“Sym—whisky, Bella Donna.”

The girl glanced at Dale, who nodded his head, and she hurried out. The door opened the next minute to admit a slight little man, most carefully dressed, and whose keen, refined features, essentially French, were full of animation.

“Ah, you smoke, and are at rest,” he said. “Then I am welcome. Dear boys, both of you. And the picture?”

He stood, cigarette in teeth, gazing at the large canvas for a few moments.

“Excellent! So good!” he cried. “Ah, Dale, my friend, you would be great, but you do so paint backwards.”

“Eh?” cried Pacey.

“I mean, my faith, he was much more in advance a month ago. There was a goddess here. Where is she now?”

“Behind the clouds,” said Pacey, forming one of a goodly size; and the others helped in a more modest way, as an animated conversation ensued upon art, Pacey giving his opinions loudly, and with the decision of a judge, while the young Frenchman listened to his criticism, much of it being directed at a flower-painting he had in progress.

The debate was at its height, when the little maid again appeared with a note in her hand.

“Aha!” cried Pacey, who was in the highest spirits—“maid of honour to the duchess—the flower of her sex again. Hah! how sweet the perfume of her presence wafted to my sense of smell.”

“Oh, do adone, please, Mr Pacey, sir. You’re always making game of me. I’ll tell missus you call her the duchess—see if I don’t. It ain’t me as smells: it’s this here letter, quite strong. Please, Mr Dale, sir, it was left by that lady in her carriage.”

“Keren-Happuch!” came from below stairs as the girl handed Dale the note; and his countenance changed as he involuntarily turned his eyes to his friend.

“Keren-Happuch!” came again.

“Comin’, mum,” shouted the girl, thrusting her head for a moment through the ajar door, and turning back again.

“Said there wasn’t no answer, sir.”

“Keren-Happuch!”

“A call from the Duchess of Fitzroy Square,” said Pacey merrily.

“No, sir, it was that Hightalian lady, her as is painted there,” said the girl innocently, and pointing to the canvas leaning against the wall, as she ran out.

“Confound her!” roared Pacey, springing to his feet, and turning upon his friend, with his eyes flashing beneath his shaggy brows; “is there no such thing as truth in this cursed world?”

“What do you mean?” cried Dale hotly, as he crushed the scented note in his hand.

“Samson and Delilah,” said Pacey, with savage mockery in his tones. “Here, Leronde, lad,” he continued, taking up his glass, “a toast for you—Vive la gallantry. Bah!”

He lifted the glass high above his head, but did not drink. He gave Armstrong a fierce, contemptuous look, and dashed the glass into the grate, where it was shivered to atoms.

Chapter Seven.The Scented Note.Leronde stood for a moment watching his friends excitedly; and then, as Pacey moved towards the door, he sprang before it.“No, no!” he cried; “you two shall not quarrel. I will not see it. You, my two artist friends who took pity on me when I fly—I, a communard—for my life from Paris. You, Pacie, who say I am brother of the crayon, and help me to sell to the dealaire; you, Dale, dear friend, who say, ‘Come, ole boy, and here is papaire and tobacco for cigarette,’ and at times the dinner and the bock of bière, and sometimes wine—you shake hands, both of you. I, Alexis Leronde, say you muss.”“Silence!” roared Pacey. “Whoever heard of good coming of French mediation?”“Be quiet, Leronde,” cried Armstrong firmly. “Joe, old fellow, let me—a word—explain.”“Explain?” growled Pacey, as the young Parisian shrugged his shoulders and stood aside to begin rolling up a cigarette with his thin deft fingers.“Stop, Joe!” cried Armstrong, “you shall not go. The letter is some request about the picture—for another artist to finish it. Here, read it, and satisfy yourself.”He tore open the scented missive, glanced at it, and was about to hand it over to his friend; but a few words caught his eye, and he crushed the paper in his hand, to stand flushed and frowning before his friend.“All right: I see,” said the latter, with a bitter, contemptuous laugh. “We’re a paltry, weak lot, we men. Poor little daughter of the stars and stripes across the herring-pond! I’m sorry, for I did think I could believe your word.”“Dear boys—ole men!” cried Leronde, advancing once more to play mediator.“Shut up!” roared Pacey, so fiercely that the young Frenchman frowned, folded his arms across his chest, and puffed out a cloud of smoke in defiance.“Joe, I swear—”“Thank you,” said Pacey ironically. “I can do enough of that as I go home;” and, swinging open the door, he strode out and went downstairs, whistling loudly the last popular music-hall air.“Aha! he flies,” cried Leronde, biting through his cigarette, the lighted end falling to the floor, while he ground up the other between his teeth. “I go down. He insult me—he insult you, my dear friend. I pull his nose on ze door mat, and say damn.”“Be quiet, lad!” cried Armstrong fiercely. “It is nothing to do with you. It is my affair.”“Yes, I understand, dear ole man,” said Leronde, placing his fingers to his lips, and nodding his head a great deal, while Armstrong stood dreamy and thoughtful, frowning, as if undecided what to do. “I know I am French—man of the whole world, my friend. I love the big Pacie. So good, so noble, but he is not young and handsome. The lady, she prefaire my other good friend. What marvel? And the good Pacie is jealous.”“No, no; you do not understand.”“But, yes. Cherchez la femme! It is so always. They make all the mischief in the great world, but we love them always the same.”“I tell you that you do not understand,” cried Armstrong angrily.“Well, no; but enough, my friend. Ah, there is so much in a lettaire that is perfumed. I do not like it; you two are such good friends—my best friends; you, the American, he, the big honest Jean Bull. I do not like you to fight, but there, what is it?—a meeting for the honour in Hyde Park, a few minutes wiz the small sword, a scratch, and then you embrace, and we go to the déjeûner better friends than before. You are silent. I will make another cigarette.”“I was thinking,” said Dale slowly.“What—you fear to ask me to be your second? Be of good courage, my friend. I will bear your cartel of defiance, and ask him who is his friend.”“Bah!” ejaculated Dale, so roughly that Leronde frowned. “There, don’t take any notice of me, old fellow,” he cried. “Sit down and smoke. You will excuse me.”Leronde bowed, and Armstrong hurried into his inner room, where he smoothed out the note, and read half aloud and in a disconnected way:—“How can you stay away—those long weary weeks—my unhappy state—force me to write humbly—appealingly—my wretched thoughts—Lady Grayson—her double looks of triumph over me—will not believe it of you—could not be so base for such a heartless woman as that—heartbroken—my first and only love—won from me my shameless avowal—not shameless—a love as true as ever given—for you so good and noble. In despair—no rest but in the grave—forgive your coldness. Come back to me or I shall die—die now when hope, love, and joy are before me. You must—you shall—I pray by all that is true and manly in your nature—or in my mad recklessness and despair I shall cast consequences to the winds and come to you.”Dale crushed up the letter once again, and as he stood frowning and thoughtful, he struck a match, lit the paper, and held it in his hand till it had completely burned out, scorching his hand the while. Then, going to the window, he blew the tinder out and saw it fall.“The ashes of a dead love,” he muttered; and then quickly, “No, it was not love. The mad fancy of the moment. There, it is all over. Poor woman! if all she says is honest truth, she must fight it down, and forgive me if I have been to blame. Yes; some day I can tell her. She will not forgive me, for there is nothing to forgive. Poor little woman! Ah, if the one who loves us could see and know all—the life, the thoughts of the wisest and best man who ever breathed! Nature, you are a hard mistress. Well, that is over; but poor old Joe! He will find out the truth, though, and ask my pardon. Everything comes to the man who waits.”He crossed to a desk lying on a table by his bed, opened it, took out a photograph, and gazed at it for a few moments before replacing it with a sigh.“You can be at rest, little one. Surely I am strong enough to keep my word.”Then he started and bit his lip, for a hot flush came to his temples as the last words in the letter he had burned rose before him: “cast consequences to the winds and come to you.”He shivered at the idea, as for the moment he saw the beautiful, passionate woman standing before him with her pleading eyes and outstretched hands.“No!” he cried aloud, “she would not go to the man who treats her with silence and—”“Did you call me, mon ami?” said a voice at the door.“No, old fellow; I’m coming,” cried Dale; and then to himself, as one who has mastered self. “That is all past and gone—in ashes to the winds. Now for work.”

Leronde stood for a moment watching his friends excitedly; and then, as Pacey moved towards the door, he sprang before it.

“No, no!” he cried; “you two shall not quarrel. I will not see it. You, my two artist friends who took pity on me when I fly—I, a communard—for my life from Paris. You, Pacie, who say I am brother of the crayon, and help me to sell to the dealaire; you, Dale, dear friend, who say, ‘Come, ole boy, and here is papaire and tobacco for cigarette,’ and at times the dinner and the bock of bière, and sometimes wine—you shake hands, both of you. I, Alexis Leronde, say you muss.”

“Silence!” roared Pacey. “Whoever heard of good coming of French mediation?”

“Be quiet, Leronde,” cried Armstrong firmly. “Joe, old fellow, let me—a word—explain.”

“Explain?” growled Pacey, as the young Parisian shrugged his shoulders and stood aside to begin rolling up a cigarette with his thin deft fingers.

“Stop, Joe!” cried Armstrong, “you shall not go. The letter is some request about the picture—for another artist to finish it. Here, read it, and satisfy yourself.”

He tore open the scented missive, glanced at it, and was about to hand it over to his friend; but a few words caught his eye, and he crushed the paper in his hand, to stand flushed and frowning before his friend.

“All right: I see,” said the latter, with a bitter, contemptuous laugh. “We’re a paltry, weak lot, we men. Poor little daughter of the stars and stripes across the herring-pond! I’m sorry, for I did think I could believe your word.”

“Dear boys—ole men!” cried Leronde, advancing once more to play mediator.

“Shut up!” roared Pacey, so fiercely that the young Frenchman frowned, folded his arms across his chest, and puffed out a cloud of smoke in defiance.

“Joe, I swear—”

“Thank you,” said Pacey ironically. “I can do enough of that as I go home;” and, swinging open the door, he strode out and went downstairs, whistling loudly the last popular music-hall air.

“Aha! he flies,” cried Leronde, biting through his cigarette, the lighted end falling to the floor, while he ground up the other between his teeth. “I go down. He insult me—he insult you, my dear friend. I pull his nose on ze door mat, and say damn.”

“Be quiet, lad!” cried Armstrong fiercely. “It is nothing to do with you. It is my affair.”

“Yes, I understand, dear ole man,” said Leronde, placing his fingers to his lips, and nodding his head a great deal, while Armstrong stood dreamy and thoughtful, frowning, as if undecided what to do. “I know I am French—man of the whole world, my friend. I love the big Pacie. So good, so noble, but he is not young and handsome. The lady, she prefaire my other good friend. What marvel? And the good Pacie is jealous.”

“No, no; you do not understand.”

“But, yes. Cherchez la femme! It is so always. They make all the mischief in the great world, but we love them always the same.”

“I tell you that you do not understand,” cried Armstrong angrily.

“Well, no; but enough, my friend. Ah, there is so much in a lettaire that is perfumed. I do not like it; you two are such good friends—my best friends; you, the American, he, the big honest Jean Bull. I do not like you to fight, but there, what is it?—a meeting for the honour in Hyde Park, a few minutes wiz the small sword, a scratch, and then you embrace, and we go to the déjeûner better friends than before. You are silent. I will make another cigarette.”

“I was thinking,” said Dale slowly.

“What—you fear to ask me to be your second? Be of good courage, my friend. I will bear your cartel of defiance, and ask him who is his friend.”

“Bah!” ejaculated Dale, so roughly that Leronde frowned. “There, don’t take any notice of me, old fellow,” he cried. “Sit down and smoke. You will excuse me.”

Leronde bowed, and Armstrong hurried into his inner room, where he smoothed out the note, and read half aloud and in a disconnected way:—

“How can you stay away—those long weary weeks—my unhappy state—force me to write humbly—appealingly—my wretched thoughts—Lady Grayson—her double looks of triumph over me—will not believe it of you—could not be so base for such a heartless woman as that—heartbroken—my first and only love—won from me my shameless avowal—not shameless—a love as true as ever given—for you so good and noble. In despair—no rest but in the grave—forgive your coldness. Come back to me or I shall die—die now when hope, love, and joy are before me. You must—you shall—I pray by all that is true and manly in your nature—or in my mad recklessness and despair I shall cast consequences to the winds and come to you.”

Dale crushed up the letter once again, and as he stood frowning and thoughtful, he struck a match, lit the paper, and held it in his hand till it had completely burned out, scorching his hand the while. Then, going to the window, he blew the tinder out and saw it fall.

“The ashes of a dead love,” he muttered; and then quickly, “No, it was not love. The mad fancy of the moment. There, it is all over. Poor woman! if all she says is honest truth, she must fight it down, and forgive me if I have been to blame. Yes; some day I can tell her. She will not forgive me, for there is nothing to forgive. Poor little woman! Ah, if the one who loves us could see and know all—the life, the thoughts of the wisest and best man who ever breathed! Nature, you are a hard mistress. Well, that is over; but poor old Joe! He will find out the truth, though, and ask my pardon. Everything comes to the man who waits.”

He crossed to a desk lying on a table by his bed, opened it, took out a photograph, and gazed at it for a few moments before replacing it with a sigh.

“You can be at rest, little one. Surely I am strong enough to keep my word.”

Then he started and bit his lip, for a hot flush came to his temples as the last words in the letter he had burned rose before him: “cast consequences to the winds and come to you.”

He shivered at the idea, as for the moment he saw the beautiful, passionate woman standing before him with her pleading eyes and outstretched hands.

“No!” he cried aloud, “she would not go to the man who treats her with silence and—”

“Did you call me, mon ami?” said a voice at the door.

“No, old fellow; I’m coming,” cried Dale; and then to himself, as one who has mastered self. “That is all past and gone—in ashes to the winds. Now for work.”

Chapter Eight.In the Scales.“Nothing like hard work. I’ve conquered,” said Dale to himself one morning, as he sat toiling away at his big picture, whose minor portions were standing out definitely round the principal figure, which had been painted in again and again, but always to be cleaned off in disgust, and was now merely sketched in charcoal.He was waiting patiently for the model who was to attend to stand for that figure—the figure only—for Pacey’s idea had taken hold, and, though he could not dwell upon it without a nervous feeling of dread, and asking himself whether it was not dangerous ground to take, he had determined, as he thought, to prove his strength, to endeavour to idealise the Contessa’s features for his Juno. It was the very countenance he wished to produce, and if he could have caught her expression and fixed it upon canvas that day when the Conte entered, so evidently by preconcerted arrangement with Lady Grayson, the picture would have been perfect.“It need not be like her,” he argued; “it is the expression I want.”He knew that in very few hours he could produce that face with its scornful eyes, but he always put it off.After a time, when the trouble there was not so fresh, it would be more easy—“and the power to paint it as I saw it then have grown faint,” he added in despair, with the consequence that between the desire to paint a masterpiece, and the temptation to which he had been exposed, the face of Lady Dellatoria was always before him, sleeping and waking; though had he made a strong effort to cast out the recollection of those passionate, yearning eyes, the letters he received from time to time would have kept the memory fresh.“At last!” he cried that morning, as steps were heard upon the stairs. “But she has not a light foot. I remember, though: they told me that she was a fine, majestic-looking woman.”There was a tap at the door.“Come in.”Jupiter himself, in the person of Daniel Jaggs, thrust in his noble head.“All right, Emperor, come in,” said Dale, going on painting, giving touches to the background of his Olympian scene, with its group of glowing beauties, who were to be surpassed by the majesty of the principal figure still to come. “What is it? Don’t want you to-day.”“No, sir. I knowed it was a lady day, but I’ve come with a message from one.”“Not from Lady—”He ceased speaking, and his heart beat heavily. Jaggs had been to and from Portland Place with the canvas. Had she made him her messenger?“Yes, sir; from Lady Somers Town.”“What?” cried Dale, with a sigh of relief, though, to his agony, he felt that he longed to hear from the Contessa again.“Lady Somers Town, sir; that’s what Mr Pacey used to call her. Miss Vere Montesquieu of the Kaiserinn.”“Miss Vere Montesquieu!” said Dale contemptuously.“Well, that’s what she calls herself, sir. Did you say what was her real name, sir?”“No, I didn’t, but I thought it. Oh, by the way, Jaggs, I must have another sitting or two from you. We haven’t quite caught the expression of Jupiter’s lips.”“No, sir, we haven’t, sir,” said the model, looking at the canvas wistfully. “I know azactly what you want, but it’s so hard to put it on.”“It is, Jaggs.”“You want him to be looking as he would if he was afraid of his missus, and she’d just found him out at one of his games.”“That’s it.”“Well, sir, I’ll try again. Perhaps I can manage it next time. I was a bit on the other night, and I did get it pretty warm when I went home. I’ll try and feel like I did then, next time I’m a settin’.”“Yes, do,” said Dale, who kept on with his work. “Ah, that’s better. Well, you were going to say something. Is anything wrong?”“Well, sir, I’m only a poor model, and it ain’t for me to presoom.”“Lookers-on see most of the game, Jaggs. What is it?”“Well, sir, I was looking at Jupiter’s corpus.”“Eh? See something out of drawing?”“No, sir; your nattomy’s all right, of course. Never see it wrong. You’re splendid on ’ticulation, muskle, and flesh. But that’s Sam Spraggs as sat for the body, wasn’t it?”“Yes; I’ve fitted it to your head.”“Well, sir, not to presoom, do you feel sure as it wouldn’t be more god-like, more Jupitery as you may say, if you let me set, painted that out, and give the head the proper body. Be more nat’ral like, wouldn’t it?”“No. What’s the matter with that?—the composition of a more muscular man with your head is, I think, excellent.”“But it ain’t nat’ral like, sir. You see, Sam’s too fat.”“Oh no, Jaggs. He only looks as if Hebe and Ganymede had poured him out good potions of a prime vintage, and as if the honey of Hybla often melted in his mouth.”“Well, sir, you knows best. Maria Budd says—”“Who?”“Miss Montesquieu, sir. She’s old Budd’s—the Somers Town greengrocer’s—gal.”“Humph! Idiot! Well, what message has she sent? Not coming again?”“No, sir. She’s very sorry, sir; but she’s got an engagement to early dinner at Brighton to-day, and won’t only be back in time to take her place in the chorus to-night.”“Confound the woman! I shall never get the figure done. Do you know of any one else, Jaggs?”“No, sir; and I’m afraid that you won’t after all be satisfied with her.”“All, well, you needn’t wait. Seen Mr Pacey lately?”“Yes, sir. Looks very ill, he do. Good morning, sir.”“Good morning.”“Beg pardon, sir; but my missus—”“There, there, I don’t want to hear a long string of your inventions, Jaggs. How much do you want?”“Oh, thankye, sir. If you could manage to let me have five shillings on account.—Thankye, sir. You are a gentleman.”“The Emperor” departed, winking to himself as if he had something on his mind; and Dale threw down brushes and palette, sat back with his hands clasped behind his head, gazing at the blank place in his great canvas, till by slow degrees it was filled, and in all her majestic angry beauty Juno stood there, with her attendants shrinking and looking on, while she seemed to be flashing at her lord lightnings more terrible than those he held in his hand.The face, the wondrous figure, in all its glow of mature womanhood, were there; and then the eyes seemed to turn upon Dale a look of love and appeal to him to think upon her piteous state, vowed to love and honour such a man as that.Armstrong shuddered and wrenched his eyes away, wondering at the power of his vivid imagination, which had conjured up before him the Contessa in all the pride of her womanly beauty; and strive how he might to think of her only in connection with his picture, as he felt that he could produce her exactly there, and make the group a triumph of his work, he knew that his thoughts were of another cast, and that, in spite of all, this woman had inspired him with a passion that enthralled his very soul.He started up, for the maid entered with a letter, and he fancied that she seemed to read his thoughts, as he took it and threw it carelessly on the table.He did not look at the address. There was the Conte’s florid crest, face upward, and it lay there ready to be burned as soon as he left his seat, for the matches were over the fireless grate.Keren-Happuch had reached the door.“’Tain’t scented up like some on ’em,” she said to herself; and then she turned to look wistfully at the artist, whose eyes were fixed upon vacancy, for he was reading the letter in imagination. He knew every word of sorrowful reproach it would contain, for the letters were little varied. She would tell him of her solitary state, beg him to reconsider his decision, and ask him whether, in spite of the world and its laws, it was not a man’s duty to take compassion upon the woman who loved him with all her heart. Yes: he could read it all.“Must get away,” he said to himself. “Why not go back home, and seek for safety behind the armour of her innocency? My poor darling, I want to be true to you, but I am sorely tempted now. It cannot be love; only a vile, degrading passion from which I must flee, for I am—Heaven knows, how weak.”“Ain’t yer well, sir?” said Keren-Happuch, in commiserating tones.He started, not knowing that the girl was there.“Well? Oh yes, Miranda, quite well.”“No, you ain’t, sir, I know; and it ain’t because you smokes too much, nor comes home all tipsy like some artisses does, for I never let you in when you wasn’t just what you are now, the nicest gent we ever had here.”“Why, you wicked little flatterer, what does this mean?” cried Dale merrily.“No, sir, and that won’t do,” said the girl. “I’m little, but I’m precious old, and I’ve seen and knows a deal. You ain’t well, sir!”“Nonsense, girl! I’m quite well. There, run away.”“No, sir, there ain’t no need; she’s out. There’s no one at home but me and puss. I can talk to you to-day without her knowing and shouting after me. She ’ates me talking to the lodgers.—I knows you ain’t well.”“What rubbish, my girl! I’m well enough.”“Oh no; you ain’t, sir. I don’t mean poorly, and wants physic, but ill with wherritin’, same as I feels sometimes when I gets it extry from missus. I know what’s the matter; you’ve got what Mr Branton had when he spent six months over his ’cademy picture as was lovely, and they sent it back. He said it was the blues. That’s what you’ve got, because you can’t get on with yours, which is too lovely to be sent back. I know what a bother you’ve had to get a model for the middle there, and it worries you.”“Well, yes, Miranda, my girl, I’ll confess it does.”“I knowed it,” she cried, clapping her hands; “and just because you’re bothered, none of the gents don’t seem to come and see you now. Mr Leerondee ain’t been, and Mr Pacey don’t seem to come anigh you. Sometimes I feel glad, because he teases me so, and allus says things I don’t understand. But I don’t mind: I wish he’d come now and cheer you up.”“Oh, I shall be all right, Mirandy, my little lassie, as soon—”“Yes, that you will, sir, because you must get it done, you know. It is lovely.”“Think so?” said Dale, who felt amused by the poor, thin, smutty little object’s interest in his welfare.“Think so! Oh, there ain’t no thinking about it. I heard Mr Pacey tell Mr Leerondee that it was the best thing he ever see o’ yours. I do want you to get it done, sir. It seems such a pity for that big bit in the middle not to be painted.”“Yes, girl; but it must wait.”“Mr Dale, sir, you won’t think anything, will you?”“Eh? What about?”“’Cause of what I’m going to say, sir,” she said bashfully. “I do want you to get that picture well hung, sir, and make your fortune, and get to be a R.A.”“Thank you. What were you going to say?”“Only, sir, as I wouldn’t for any one else; no, not if it was for the Prince o’ Wales, or the Dook o’ Edinburgh hisself, but I would for you.”“I don’t understand you,” said Dale, wondering at the girl’s manner.“I meant, sir, as sooner—sooner—than you shouldn’t get that picture done and painted proper, I’d come and stand for that there figure myself.” Dale wanted to burst out laughing at the idea of the poor, ill-nurtured, grubby little creature becoming his model for the mature, graceful Juno; but there was so much genuine desire to help him, so much naïve innocency in the poor little drudge’s words, that he contained himself, and before he could think of how to refuse without hurting her feelings, there was a resonant double knock and ring at the front door.“Why, if it ain’t the postman again,” cried the girl. “He was here just now. I know: it’s one o’ them mail letters, as they calls ’em, from foreign abroad.”Keren-Happuch was right, for she came panting up directly with a thin paper envelope in her hand, branded “Boston, U.S.A.”“For you, sir,” she said; and she looked at him wistfully, as in an emotional way he snatched the letter from her hand and pressed it to his lips.“Salvation!” he muttered, as he turned away to go to the inner room. “God bless you, darling! You are with me once again. I never wanted you worse.”“It’s from his sweetheart over acrost the seas,” said Keren-Happuch, as she spread her dirty apron on the balustrade, so as not to soil the mahogany with her hand as she leaned upon it to go down, sadly. “And he’s in love, too; that’s what’s the matter with him. Puss, puss, puss!”There was a soft mew, and a dirty-white cat trotted up to meet her, and leaped up to climb to her thin shoulders, and then rub its head affectionately against her head, to the disarrangement of her dirty cap.“Ah! don’t stick your claws through my thin clothes.—Yes,” she mused, “he’s in love. Wonder what people feel like who are in love, and whether anybody ’ll ever love me. Don’t suppose any one ever will: I’m such a poor-looking sort o’ thing. But it don’t matter. You like me, don’t you, puss? And them as is in love don’t seem to be very happy after all.”

“Nothing like hard work. I’ve conquered,” said Dale to himself one morning, as he sat toiling away at his big picture, whose minor portions were standing out definitely round the principal figure, which had been painted in again and again, but always to be cleaned off in disgust, and was now merely sketched in charcoal.

He was waiting patiently for the model who was to attend to stand for that figure—the figure only—for Pacey’s idea had taken hold, and, though he could not dwell upon it without a nervous feeling of dread, and asking himself whether it was not dangerous ground to take, he had determined, as he thought, to prove his strength, to endeavour to idealise the Contessa’s features for his Juno. It was the very countenance he wished to produce, and if he could have caught her expression and fixed it upon canvas that day when the Conte entered, so evidently by preconcerted arrangement with Lady Grayson, the picture would have been perfect.

“It need not be like her,” he argued; “it is the expression I want.”

He knew that in very few hours he could produce that face with its scornful eyes, but he always put it off.

After a time, when the trouble there was not so fresh, it would be more easy—“and the power to paint it as I saw it then have grown faint,” he added in despair, with the consequence that between the desire to paint a masterpiece, and the temptation to which he had been exposed, the face of Lady Dellatoria was always before him, sleeping and waking; though had he made a strong effort to cast out the recollection of those passionate, yearning eyes, the letters he received from time to time would have kept the memory fresh.

“At last!” he cried that morning, as steps were heard upon the stairs. “But she has not a light foot. I remember, though: they told me that she was a fine, majestic-looking woman.”

There was a tap at the door.

“Come in.”

Jupiter himself, in the person of Daniel Jaggs, thrust in his noble head.

“All right, Emperor, come in,” said Dale, going on painting, giving touches to the background of his Olympian scene, with its group of glowing beauties, who were to be surpassed by the majesty of the principal figure still to come. “What is it? Don’t want you to-day.”

“No, sir. I knowed it was a lady day, but I’ve come with a message from one.”

“Not from Lady—”

He ceased speaking, and his heart beat heavily. Jaggs had been to and from Portland Place with the canvas. Had she made him her messenger?

“Yes, sir; from Lady Somers Town.”

“What?” cried Dale, with a sigh of relief, though, to his agony, he felt that he longed to hear from the Contessa again.

“Lady Somers Town, sir; that’s what Mr Pacey used to call her. Miss Vere Montesquieu of the Kaiserinn.”

“Miss Vere Montesquieu!” said Dale contemptuously.

“Well, that’s what she calls herself, sir. Did you say what was her real name, sir?”

“No, I didn’t, but I thought it. Oh, by the way, Jaggs, I must have another sitting or two from you. We haven’t quite caught the expression of Jupiter’s lips.”

“No, sir, we haven’t, sir,” said the model, looking at the canvas wistfully. “I know azactly what you want, but it’s so hard to put it on.”

“It is, Jaggs.”

“You want him to be looking as he would if he was afraid of his missus, and she’d just found him out at one of his games.”

“That’s it.”

“Well, sir, I’ll try again. Perhaps I can manage it next time. I was a bit on the other night, and I did get it pretty warm when I went home. I’ll try and feel like I did then, next time I’m a settin’.”

“Yes, do,” said Dale, who kept on with his work. “Ah, that’s better. Well, you were going to say something. Is anything wrong?”

“Well, sir, I’m only a poor model, and it ain’t for me to presoom.”

“Lookers-on see most of the game, Jaggs. What is it?”

“Well, sir, I was looking at Jupiter’s corpus.”

“Eh? See something out of drawing?”

“No, sir; your nattomy’s all right, of course. Never see it wrong. You’re splendid on ’ticulation, muskle, and flesh. But that’s Sam Spraggs as sat for the body, wasn’t it?”

“Yes; I’ve fitted it to your head.”

“Well, sir, not to presoom, do you feel sure as it wouldn’t be more god-like, more Jupitery as you may say, if you let me set, painted that out, and give the head the proper body. Be more nat’ral like, wouldn’t it?”

“No. What’s the matter with that?—the composition of a more muscular man with your head is, I think, excellent.”

“But it ain’t nat’ral like, sir. You see, Sam’s too fat.”

“Oh no, Jaggs. He only looks as if Hebe and Ganymede had poured him out good potions of a prime vintage, and as if the honey of Hybla often melted in his mouth.”

“Well, sir, you knows best. Maria Budd says—”

“Who?”

“Miss Montesquieu, sir. She’s old Budd’s—the Somers Town greengrocer’s—gal.”

“Humph! Idiot! Well, what message has she sent? Not coming again?”

“No, sir. She’s very sorry, sir; but she’s got an engagement to early dinner at Brighton to-day, and won’t only be back in time to take her place in the chorus to-night.”

“Confound the woman! I shall never get the figure done. Do you know of any one else, Jaggs?”

“No, sir; and I’m afraid that you won’t after all be satisfied with her.”

“All, well, you needn’t wait. Seen Mr Pacey lately?”

“Yes, sir. Looks very ill, he do. Good morning, sir.”

“Good morning.”

“Beg pardon, sir; but my missus—”

“There, there, I don’t want to hear a long string of your inventions, Jaggs. How much do you want?”

“Oh, thankye, sir. If you could manage to let me have five shillings on account.—Thankye, sir. You are a gentleman.”

“The Emperor” departed, winking to himself as if he had something on his mind; and Dale threw down brushes and palette, sat back with his hands clasped behind his head, gazing at the blank place in his great canvas, till by slow degrees it was filled, and in all her majestic angry beauty Juno stood there, with her attendants shrinking and looking on, while she seemed to be flashing at her lord lightnings more terrible than those he held in his hand.

The face, the wondrous figure, in all its glow of mature womanhood, were there; and then the eyes seemed to turn upon Dale a look of love and appeal to him to think upon her piteous state, vowed to love and honour such a man as that.

Armstrong shuddered and wrenched his eyes away, wondering at the power of his vivid imagination, which had conjured up before him the Contessa in all the pride of her womanly beauty; and strive how he might to think of her only in connection with his picture, as he felt that he could produce her exactly there, and make the group a triumph of his work, he knew that his thoughts were of another cast, and that, in spite of all, this woman had inspired him with a passion that enthralled his very soul.

He started up, for the maid entered with a letter, and he fancied that she seemed to read his thoughts, as he took it and threw it carelessly on the table.

He did not look at the address. There was the Conte’s florid crest, face upward, and it lay there ready to be burned as soon as he left his seat, for the matches were over the fireless grate.

Keren-Happuch had reached the door.

“’Tain’t scented up like some on ’em,” she said to herself; and then she turned to look wistfully at the artist, whose eyes were fixed upon vacancy, for he was reading the letter in imagination. He knew every word of sorrowful reproach it would contain, for the letters were little varied. She would tell him of her solitary state, beg him to reconsider his decision, and ask him whether, in spite of the world and its laws, it was not a man’s duty to take compassion upon the woman who loved him with all her heart. Yes: he could read it all.

“Must get away,” he said to himself. “Why not go back home, and seek for safety behind the armour of her innocency? My poor darling, I want to be true to you, but I am sorely tempted now. It cannot be love; only a vile, degrading passion from which I must flee, for I am—Heaven knows, how weak.”

“Ain’t yer well, sir?” said Keren-Happuch, in commiserating tones.

He started, not knowing that the girl was there.

“Well? Oh yes, Miranda, quite well.”

“No, you ain’t, sir, I know; and it ain’t because you smokes too much, nor comes home all tipsy like some artisses does, for I never let you in when you wasn’t just what you are now, the nicest gent we ever had here.”

“Why, you wicked little flatterer, what does this mean?” cried Dale merrily.

“No, sir, and that won’t do,” said the girl. “I’m little, but I’m precious old, and I’ve seen and knows a deal. You ain’t well, sir!”

“Nonsense, girl! I’m quite well. There, run away.”

“No, sir, there ain’t no need; she’s out. There’s no one at home but me and puss. I can talk to you to-day without her knowing and shouting after me. She ’ates me talking to the lodgers.—I knows you ain’t well.”

“What rubbish, my girl! I’m well enough.”

“Oh no; you ain’t, sir. I don’t mean poorly, and wants physic, but ill with wherritin’, same as I feels sometimes when I gets it extry from missus. I know what’s the matter; you’ve got what Mr Branton had when he spent six months over his ’cademy picture as was lovely, and they sent it back. He said it was the blues. That’s what you’ve got, because you can’t get on with yours, which is too lovely to be sent back. I know what a bother you’ve had to get a model for the middle there, and it worries you.”

“Well, yes, Miranda, my girl, I’ll confess it does.”

“I knowed it,” she cried, clapping her hands; “and just because you’re bothered, none of the gents don’t seem to come and see you now. Mr Leerondee ain’t been, and Mr Pacey don’t seem to come anigh you. Sometimes I feel glad, because he teases me so, and allus says things I don’t understand. But I don’t mind: I wish he’d come now and cheer you up.”

“Oh, I shall be all right, Mirandy, my little lassie, as soon—”

“Yes, that you will, sir, because you must get it done, you know. It is lovely.”

“Think so?” said Dale, who felt amused by the poor, thin, smutty little object’s interest in his welfare.

“Think so! Oh, there ain’t no thinking about it. I heard Mr Pacey tell Mr Leerondee that it was the best thing he ever see o’ yours. I do want you to get it done, sir. It seems such a pity for that big bit in the middle not to be painted.”

“Yes, girl; but it must wait.”

“Mr Dale, sir, you won’t think anything, will you?”

“Eh? What about?”

“’Cause of what I’m going to say, sir,” she said bashfully. “I do want you to get that picture well hung, sir, and make your fortune, and get to be a R.A.”

“Thank you. What were you going to say?”

“Only, sir, as I wouldn’t for any one else; no, not if it was for the Prince o’ Wales, or the Dook o’ Edinburgh hisself, but I would for you.”

“I don’t understand you,” said Dale, wondering at the girl’s manner.

“I meant, sir, as sooner—sooner—than you shouldn’t get that picture done and painted proper, I’d come and stand for that there figure myself.” Dale wanted to burst out laughing at the idea of the poor, ill-nurtured, grubby little creature becoming his model for the mature, graceful Juno; but there was so much genuine desire to help him, so much naïve innocency in the poor little drudge’s words, that he contained himself, and before he could think of how to refuse without hurting her feelings, there was a resonant double knock and ring at the front door.

“Why, if it ain’t the postman again,” cried the girl. “He was here just now. I know: it’s one o’ them mail letters, as they calls ’em, from foreign abroad.”

Keren-Happuch was right, for she came panting up directly with a thin paper envelope in her hand, branded “Boston, U.S.A.”

“For you, sir,” she said; and she looked at him wistfully, as in an emotional way he snatched the letter from her hand and pressed it to his lips.

“Salvation!” he muttered, as he turned away to go to the inner room. “God bless you, darling! You are with me once again. I never wanted you worse.”

“It’s from his sweetheart over acrost the seas,” said Keren-Happuch, as she spread her dirty apron on the balustrade, so as not to soil the mahogany with her hand as she leaned upon it to go down, sadly. “And he’s in love, too; that’s what’s the matter with him. Puss, puss, puss!”

There was a soft mew, and a dirty-white cat trotted up to meet her, and leaped up to climb to her thin shoulders, and then rub its head affectionately against her head, to the disarrangement of her dirty cap.

“Ah! don’t stick your claws through my thin clothes.—Yes,” she mused, “he’s in love. Wonder what people feel like who are in love, and whether anybody ’ll ever love me. Don’t suppose any one ever will: I’m such a poor-looking sort o’ thing. But it don’t matter. You like me, don’t you, puss? And them as is in love don’t seem to be very happy after all.”

Chapter Nine.The Model.Armstrong Dale did not hear the door close. Picture—the Contessa—everything was forgotten, and for the time he was back in Boston. For he had thrown himself into a chair, and torn open the envelope. But he could not rest like that. He wanted room, and he came back to begin striding about his studio, reading as he walked.But it did not seem to him like reading, for the words he scanned took life and light and tone as he grasped the pure, sweet, trusting words of the writer, breathing her intense love for the man to whom she had plighted her troth. And as in imagination he listened to the sweet breathings of her affection, and revelled in her homely prattle about those he knew, and her hopeful talk of the future, when he would have grown famous and returned home to the honours which would be showered upon him by his people—to the welcome for him in that one true throbbing heart, his own throbbed, too, heavily, and his eyes grew moist and dim.“God bless you, darling!” he cried passionately; “you have saved me when I was tottering on the brink and ready to fall. The touch of your dear hand has drawn me back when all was over, as I thought. I will keep faith with you, Cornel. Forgive me, love! Heaven help me; how could I be so mad!”There was a brightness directly after in his eyes, as he carefully bestowed the letter in his pocket-book and placed it in his breast.“And they say the day of miracles is past, and that there is no magic in the world,” he cried proudly. “Poor fools! they don’t know. Lie there, little talisman. You are only a scrap of paper stained with ink, but you are a charm of the strongest magic. Bah! It was all a passing madness, and I have won. What a silly, weak, morbid state I was in,” he continued, as he stood in front of his picture, and snatched up palette and brushes. “Why, Cornel darling, you have burned up all the clouds with the bright sun of your dear love. And I can finish you now, my good old daub. Jupiter can easily have that hang-dog, cowardly, found-out look imported into his phiz. I feel as if I can see, and do it now. The nymphs are as good as anything I have done. I don’t always satisfy myself, but that background is jolly. I’ve got so much light and sunshine into it, such a dreamy, golden atmosphere effect, that it brightens the whole thing, and what a nuisance it is that old Turner ever lived! If he had never been born, my background would have been grand. As it is—well, it’s only an imitation. No, no; come, old fellow: say, a good bit of work by an honest student of old Turner’s style. Yes,” he continued, drawing back, “I think it will do. Even dear old Joe praised that; he said it wasn’t so bad. Poor old chap! I wish we were friends again. And as for my Juno, I think I can manage her. Montesquieu shall come—esquieu—askew—no, not askew; I’ll get her into a noble, dignified position somehow. I hope she has a good figure. While her face—why, Cornel, my darling, it shall be yours.”He paused to stand thoughtfully before the great canvas, drawn out upon its easel into the best light cast down from the sky panes above, and let his mahlstick rest upon the picture just above the blank, paint-stained portion left for the principal figure.“Queer way of working,” he said with a laugh, “finishing the surroundings before putting in the mainspring of my theme. That’s hardly fair, though, for I painted my Juno first—ah! how many times, and rubbed her out. Never mind; she must come strong now to stand out well in front of these figures. She must—she shall.”He stood there motionless for a few minutes; and then, quite eagerly—“Why not?” he said. “Too soft, sweet, and gentle-looking? Cornel, darling, it shall be an expiation of a fault, and some day in the future you shall stand before it and gaze in your own true face as I have painted you—made grand, crushing, majestic, full of scorn and contempt, as it would have been, had you stood face to face with me, awaking to the fact that I was utterly lost, unworthy of your love. I can—I will—paint that face, and that day, darling, when you turn to me with those questioning eyes, and tell me you could not have looked like this, you shall know the truth.”The inspiration was there, and with wonderful skill and rapidity he began to sketch in the face glowing before him in his imagination. No model could have given him the power to paint in so swiftly those lineaments, which began to live upon the canvas as the hours went on. For he was lost to everything but the task before him, and he grew flushed and excited as the noble frowning brow threatened, and then by a few deft touches those wonderful liquid eyes began to blaze with passionate scorn. The ruddy, beautifully curved lips were parted, revealing the glistening teeth; and at last, how long after he could not tell, he shrank away from the great canvas, to gaze at the features he had limned, trembling, awe-stricken, knowing that his work was masterly, but asking himself whether the painting was his, or some occult spiritual deed of which he had been the mere animal mechanism, worked by the powers of evil to blast him for ever.His lips were parched, his tongue and throat felt dry with the fever which burned within him, as he stood trying to gather the courage to seize a cloth and wipe out the face that gazed at him and made him shrink in his despair.He dragged his eyes from the canvas, and looked wildly round the great studio, where all was silent as the grave. The bright light had passed away; and he knew that it must be about sunset, for all was cold and grey, save the shadows in the corners of the room, and they were black. Everything was growing dim and misty, save the face upon his canvas, and that stood out with its scornful, fierce anger, though, through it all, so wonderful had been the inspiration beneath whose influence he had worked, there was an intense look of passionate love and forgiveness; the eyes, while scornfully condemning and upbraiding, seemed to say, “I love you still, for you are and always will be mine.”“Cornel!” he groaned. “Heaven help me! and I have fought so hard. Ah!” he cried, with a sigh of relief, for there were hurried footsteps on the stairs, and the fancied dimness of the studio seemed to pass away as little, meagre Keren-Happuch gave one sharp tap on the door, and then ran in, to stop short, looking wonderingly at the artist’s ghastly, troubled face.“Oh, Mr Dale, sir, you do work too hard,” she cried reproachfully. Then, in an eager whisper, “It’s all right, sir. The model’s come. I told her she was too late for to-day, but she said she’d see you all the same.”“Where is she?” said Armstrong, in a voice which startled him.“In the ’all, sir. I made her wait while I come to know if you’d see her. She’s got on a thick wail, but sech a figger, sir. She’ll do.”“Send her up,” said Dale, “but tell her I cannot be trifled with like this.”“Yes, sir. I’ll tell her you’re in a horful rage ’cause she didn’t come this morning.”Dale hardly heard the words, but turned away as the girl left the room, to stand gazing at the face which had so magically sprung from the end of his brush; and he still stood gazing dreamily at the canvas when the door was once more opened, there was the rustling of a dress, and Keren-Happuch’s voice was heard, saying snappishly—“There’s Mr Dale.”Then the door was shut, and muttering, “Stuck-up, orty minx,” the girl went down to her own region.Dale did not stir, but still stood gazing at the canvas, fascinated by his work. But his lips moved, and he spoke half-angrily, but in a weary voice.“I had given you up, Miss Montesquieu. I want you for this figure, but if you cannot keep faith with me—yes,” he said, as his visitor stepped toward him, drawing off her veil—“for this.”He turned sharply then, as if influenced in some unaccountable way, and started back in horror and despair.“Valentina!”“Armstrong!” came in a low, passionate moan, as she flung herself upon his breast—“at last, at last!”The palette and brushes dropped from his hands—he was but man—and she uttered a low sigh of content as his arms closed round her soft yielding form, and his lips joined hers in a long, passionate, clinging kiss.Then reason mastered once more, and he thrust her from him.“No, no,” he gasped; “for God’s sake, go! Why have you come?”“A cold welcome,” she said, smiling. “I come to beg that you will grant his prayer.”“I do not understand you.”“My husband wrote begging you to reconsider your determination, and come to finish my portrait.”“Impossible! He did not write.”She pointed to the unopened letter lying upon a table, with the florid crest plainly showing.“I had not opened it,” he said. “I thought—”“That it was from me. How cruel men can be! He asks you to come back.”“At your persuasion?” cried Dale fiercely.“Yes, at my persuasion, and you will come. You must—you shall.” She clung closer to him. “Armstrong,” she whispered, “I cannot live without you. You have drawn me to you; I could bear it no longer;” and she held to him once more in spite of his repellent hands.“It is madness—your husband—your—your title—your fair fame as a woman.”“Empty words to me now,” she said in a low, thrilling whisper. “I could not stay. You are my world—everything to me now.”“Woman, I tell you again, this is madness—your husband?”“With Lady Grayson, I believe. What does it matter? I am here—with you. Armstrong, am I to go on my knees to you? I will—you have humbled me so. Why are you so cruel, when you love me too?”“I—love you—no!”She laughed softly as, in spite of his shrinking, her arms enfolded him once more, and her words came in a low sweet murmur to his ear.“Yes; you love me—as wildly and passionately as I love you. I knew it—I could feel it, though you would not answer my appeals. Look,” she whispered, “it is as I felt; you are always thinking of me. I am ever in your thoughts. But am I as beautiful as that? Yes: to you. But look from the picture to my eyes. They could not gaze so fiercely and scornfully as that. Now, tell me that you do not love me, and I was not in your thoughts.”She pointed to the features, glowing—almost speaking, from the canvas—her faithful portrait, full of the angry majesty he had sought to convey.Alas! poor Cornel. Not a lineament was hers.Armstrong groaned.“Heaven help me!” he muttered. “Is it fate?”His hands repulsed her no longer, and he stood holding her at arm’s length, gazing into the eyes which fascinated, lost to everything but her influence over him, till with a hasty gesture, full of anger, she shrank away and sought her veil from the floor.“Some one!” she whispered fiercely, for there was a step upon the stair.“The Conte,” cried Dale, startled at the interruption.“Hide me, quick! That room,” cried the Contessa; and she took a step toward it as she veiled her face. “No,” she cried, turning proudly, and resisting an inclination to step behind the great canvas close to which she stood, “Let him see me. His faithlessness has divorced us, and given me to the man I love. You will protect me. Kill him if you wish. I am not afraid.”This in a hasty whisper as the steps came nearer, and Valentina’s eyes glistened through her veil as she saw the artist draw himself up, and take a step forward to meet the intruder.“Better that it should be so at once,” she whispered. “Let him come.”The door was thrown quickly open as she spoke.

Armstrong Dale did not hear the door close. Picture—the Contessa—everything was forgotten, and for the time he was back in Boston. For he had thrown himself into a chair, and torn open the envelope. But he could not rest like that. He wanted room, and he came back to begin striding about his studio, reading as he walked.

But it did not seem to him like reading, for the words he scanned took life and light and tone as he grasped the pure, sweet, trusting words of the writer, breathing her intense love for the man to whom she had plighted her troth. And as in imagination he listened to the sweet breathings of her affection, and revelled in her homely prattle about those he knew, and her hopeful talk of the future, when he would have grown famous and returned home to the honours which would be showered upon him by his people—to the welcome for him in that one true throbbing heart, his own throbbed, too, heavily, and his eyes grew moist and dim.

“God bless you, darling!” he cried passionately; “you have saved me when I was tottering on the brink and ready to fall. The touch of your dear hand has drawn me back when all was over, as I thought. I will keep faith with you, Cornel. Forgive me, love! Heaven help me; how could I be so mad!”

There was a brightness directly after in his eyes, as he carefully bestowed the letter in his pocket-book and placed it in his breast.

“And they say the day of miracles is past, and that there is no magic in the world,” he cried proudly. “Poor fools! they don’t know. Lie there, little talisman. You are only a scrap of paper stained with ink, but you are a charm of the strongest magic. Bah! It was all a passing madness, and I have won. What a silly, weak, morbid state I was in,” he continued, as he stood in front of his picture, and snatched up palette and brushes. “Why, Cornel darling, you have burned up all the clouds with the bright sun of your dear love. And I can finish you now, my good old daub. Jupiter can easily have that hang-dog, cowardly, found-out look imported into his phiz. I feel as if I can see, and do it now. The nymphs are as good as anything I have done. I don’t always satisfy myself, but that background is jolly. I’ve got so much light and sunshine into it, such a dreamy, golden atmosphere effect, that it brightens the whole thing, and what a nuisance it is that old Turner ever lived! If he had never been born, my background would have been grand. As it is—well, it’s only an imitation. No, no; come, old fellow: say, a good bit of work by an honest student of old Turner’s style. Yes,” he continued, drawing back, “I think it will do. Even dear old Joe praised that; he said it wasn’t so bad. Poor old chap! I wish we were friends again. And as for my Juno, I think I can manage her. Montesquieu shall come—esquieu—askew—no, not askew; I’ll get her into a noble, dignified position somehow. I hope she has a good figure. While her face—why, Cornel, my darling, it shall be yours.”

He paused to stand thoughtfully before the great canvas, drawn out upon its easel into the best light cast down from the sky panes above, and let his mahlstick rest upon the picture just above the blank, paint-stained portion left for the principal figure.

“Queer way of working,” he said with a laugh, “finishing the surroundings before putting in the mainspring of my theme. That’s hardly fair, though, for I painted my Juno first—ah! how many times, and rubbed her out. Never mind; she must come strong now to stand out well in front of these figures. She must—she shall.”

He stood there motionless for a few minutes; and then, quite eagerly—

“Why not?” he said. “Too soft, sweet, and gentle-looking? Cornel, darling, it shall be an expiation of a fault, and some day in the future you shall stand before it and gaze in your own true face as I have painted you—made grand, crushing, majestic, full of scorn and contempt, as it would have been, had you stood face to face with me, awaking to the fact that I was utterly lost, unworthy of your love. I can—I will—paint that face, and that day, darling, when you turn to me with those questioning eyes, and tell me you could not have looked like this, you shall know the truth.”

The inspiration was there, and with wonderful skill and rapidity he began to sketch in the face glowing before him in his imagination. No model could have given him the power to paint in so swiftly those lineaments, which began to live upon the canvas as the hours went on. For he was lost to everything but the task before him, and he grew flushed and excited as the noble frowning brow threatened, and then by a few deft touches those wonderful liquid eyes began to blaze with passionate scorn. The ruddy, beautifully curved lips were parted, revealing the glistening teeth; and at last, how long after he could not tell, he shrank away from the great canvas, to gaze at the features he had limned, trembling, awe-stricken, knowing that his work was masterly, but asking himself whether the painting was his, or some occult spiritual deed of which he had been the mere animal mechanism, worked by the powers of evil to blast him for ever.

His lips were parched, his tongue and throat felt dry with the fever which burned within him, as he stood trying to gather the courage to seize a cloth and wipe out the face that gazed at him and made him shrink in his despair.

He dragged his eyes from the canvas, and looked wildly round the great studio, where all was silent as the grave. The bright light had passed away; and he knew that it must be about sunset, for all was cold and grey, save the shadows in the corners of the room, and they were black. Everything was growing dim and misty, save the face upon his canvas, and that stood out with its scornful, fierce anger, though, through it all, so wonderful had been the inspiration beneath whose influence he had worked, there was an intense look of passionate love and forgiveness; the eyes, while scornfully condemning and upbraiding, seemed to say, “I love you still, for you are and always will be mine.”

“Cornel!” he groaned. “Heaven help me! and I have fought so hard. Ah!” he cried, with a sigh of relief, for there were hurried footsteps on the stairs, and the fancied dimness of the studio seemed to pass away as little, meagre Keren-Happuch gave one sharp tap on the door, and then ran in, to stop short, looking wonderingly at the artist’s ghastly, troubled face.

“Oh, Mr Dale, sir, you do work too hard,” she cried reproachfully. Then, in an eager whisper, “It’s all right, sir. The model’s come. I told her she was too late for to-day, but she said she’d see you all the same.”

“Where is she?” said Armstrong, in a voice which startled him.

“In the ’all, sir. I made her wait while I come to know if you’d see her. She’s got on a thick wail, but sech a figger, sir. She’ll do.”

“Send her up,” said Dale, “but tell her I cannot be trifled with like this.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll tell her you’re in a horful rage ’cause she didn’t come this morning.”

Dale hardly heard the words, but turned away as the girl left the room, to stand gazing at the face which had so magically sprung from the end of his brush; and he still stood gazing dreamily at the canvas when the door was once more opened, there was the rustling of a dress, and Keren-Happuch’s voice was heard, saying snappishly—

“There’s Mr Dale.”

Then the door was shut, and muttering, “Stuck-up, orty minx,” the girl went down to her own region.

Dale did not stir, but still stood gazing at the canvas, fascinated by his work. But his lips moved, and he spoke half-angrily, but in a weary voice.

“I had given you up, Miss Montesquieu. I want you for this figure, but if you cannot keep faith with me—yes,” he said, as his visitor stepped toward him, drawing off her veil—“for this.”

He turned sharply then, as if influenced in some unaccountable way, and started back in horror and despair.

“Valentina!”

“Armstrong!” came in a low, passionate moan, as she flung herself upon his breast—“at last, at last!”

The palette and brushes dropped from his hands—he was but man—and she uttered a low sigh of content as his arms closed round her soft yielding form, and his lips joined hers in a long, passionate, clinging kiss.

Then reason mastered once more, and he thrust her from him.

“No, no,” he gasped; “for God’s sake, go! Why have you come?”

“A cold welcome,” she said, smiling. “I come to beg that you will grant his prayer.”

“I do not understand you.”

“My husband wrote begging you to reconsider your determination, and come to finish my portrait.”

“Impossible! He did not write.”

She pointed to the unopened letter lying upon a table, with the florid crest plainly showing.

“I had not opened it,” he said. “I thought—”

“That it was from me. How cruel men can be! He asks you to come back.”

“At your persuasion?” cried Dale fiercely.

“Yes, at my persuasion, and you will come. You must—you shall.” She clung closer to him. “Armstrong,” she whispered, “I cannot live without you. You have drawn me to you; I could bear it no longer;” and she held to him once more in spite of his repellent hands.

“It is madness—your husband—your—your title—your fair fame as a woman.”

“Empty words to me now,” she said in a low, thrilling whisper. “I could not stay. You are my world—everything to me now.”

“Woman, I tell you again, this is madness—your husband?”

“With Lady Grayson, I believe. What does it matter? I am here—with you. Armstrong, am I to go on my knees to you? I will—you have humbled me so. Why are you so cruel, when you love me too?”

“I—love you—no!”

She laughed softly as, in spite of his shrinking, her arms enfolded him once more, and her words came in a low sweet murmur to his ear.

“Yes; you love me—as wildly and passionately as I love you. I knew it—I could feel it, though you would not answer my appeals. Look,” she whispered, “it is as I felt; you are always thinking of me. I am ever in your thoughts. But am I as beautiful as that? Yes: to you. But look from the picture to my eyes. They could not gaze so fiercely and scornfully as that. Now, tell me that you do not love me, and I was not in your thoughts.”

She pointed to the features, glowing—almost speaking, from the canvas—her faithful portrait, full of the angry majesty he had sought to convey.

Alas! poor Cornel. Not a lineament was hers.

Armstrong groaned.

“Heaven help me!” he muttered. “Is it fate?”

His hands repulsed her no longer, and he stood holding her at arm’s length, gazing into the eyes which fascinated, lost to everything but her influence over him, till with a hasty gesture, full of anger, she shrank away and sought her veil from the floor.

“Some one!” she whispered fiercely, for there was a step upon the stair.

“The Conte,” cried Dale, startled at the interruption.

“Hide me, quick! That room,” cried the Contessa; and she took a step toward it as she veiled her face. “No,” she cried, turning proudly, and resisting an inclination to step behind the great canvas close to which she stood, “Let him see me. His faithlessness has divorced us, and given me to the man I love. You will protect me. Kill him if you wish. I am not afraid.”

This in a hasty whisper as the steps came nearer, and Valentina’s eyes glistened through her veil as she saw the artist draw himself up, and take a step forward to meet the intruder.

“Better that it should be so at once,” she whispered. “Let him come.”

The door was thrown quickly open as she spoke.

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