Amusement Only Part 26

The Vicomte withdrew, with the same extremely courteous salutation with which he had entered. The artist, left alone, looked at his visitor's card, which he still retained in his hand, with a very puzzled expression of countenance.

"If the Vicomte d'Humieres returns, it strikes me there'll be a little interesting conversation."

He laid down the card. He resumed the work which had been interrupted.

But the work hung fire. A painter paints, not only with his hand, but with his brain. Mr. Lovell's brain was, just then, preoccupied.

"It was a dream. And yet, as I told Warren at the time, it certainly was the most vivid dream I ever dreamt." Deserting his canvas he began to move about the room. "Supposing it wasn't a dream, and the woman was a creature of flesh and blood! Then she must have come into my room, and kissed me while I slept. I'll swear that someone kissed me.

By Jove! the Vicomte won't like to be told a tale like that! As he says, a man ought to know his own wife's face when he sees it, even in a portrait. And if the picture is a portrait of his wife, then it was his wife who came into my room--and kissed me. But whatever made her do a thing like that? There's no knowing what things some women will do. I rather fancy that I ought to have made a few inquiries before I took it for granted that it was nothing but a dream. They would have been able to tell me at the hotel if the original of my dream had been staying there. As it is, unless I mind my P's and Q's, I rather fancy there'll be a row."

"Pardon!--may I enter?"

Mr. Lovell was standing with his back to the door. The inquiry, therefore, was addressed to him from behind. The voice in which it was uttered was feminine, and the accent foreign. The artist turned--and stared. For there, peeping through the partly open door, was the woman of his dream! There could not be the slightest doubt about it.

Although the head was covered with the latest thing in Parisian hats, there was no mistaking, when one once had seen it--as _he_ had seen it--that lovely face, those laughing eyes. He stared--and gaped. The lady seemed to take his silence to imply consent. She advanced into the room.

"You are Mr. Gerald Lovell?"

As she came into the room, he perceived that she was not only most divinely fair, but most divinely tall. Her figure, clad in the most recent coquetries of Paris, was the most exquisite thing in figures he had lately seen. So completely had she taken his faculties of astonishment by storm, that he could only stammer a response.

"You are the painter of my portrait?" For the life of him, he knew not what to say. "But, if you are Mr. Gerald Lovell, it is certain that you are. Besides, I see it in your face. There is genius in your eyes.

Mr. Lovell, how am I to thank you for the honour you have done me?"

Moving to him, she held out to him her hand. He gave her his. She retained it--or, rather, part of it--in her small palm. "If I am ever destined to attain to immortality, it is to your brush it will be owing. Monsieur, permit me to salute the master!"

Before he had an inkling of her intention, she raised his hand and touched it with her lips. He withdrew it quickly.

"Madame!"

She exhibited no signs of discomposure.

"I was at your Academy, with a friend--not half an hour ago. I beheld miles of mediocrity. Suddenly I saw--my face! my own face!

glancing at me from the walls! _Ah, quel plaisir!_ But my face--how many times more lovely! How many times more beautiful! My face--depicted by the hand of a great artist! by the brush of a poet, and a genius!--Monsieur, you have placed on me ten thousand obligations."

She gave him the most sweeping curtsey with which he ever had been favoured--and in her eyes was laughter all the time. He was recovering his presence of mind. He felt that it was time to put a stop to the lady's flow of flowery language. He was about to do so--when a question she put to him again sent half his senses flying.

"There is one thing which I wished to ask you, Monsieur. When and where did I sit to you for my portrait? I do not remember to have had the pleasure and the honour of meeting you before." The lady's laughing eyes were fixed intently on his face. "And yet, as I look at you, a sort of shadowy recollection comes to me of a previous encounter; it is very strange! Monsieur, where was it we encountered--you and I?"

"Madame!"

Seeing how evidently he was at a loss for words, she put out her hand to him as if to give him courage.

"Do not be afraid. Tell me--where was it that you saw me?"

"I saw you in a dream."

"A dream? Monsieur! To hear you speak--it is like a poem. Monsieur, where did you dream this dream in which you dreamt of me?"

"It was last year, at Spa."

"At Spa--that horrible place?"

"I did not find it a horrible place."

"No? Was it that dream which you dreamt of me which robbed it of its horror?" He did not speak. He allowed her to infer a compliment, but he did not proffer one. "But Monsieur, I was only at Spa one afternoon and a single night."

"It was that night I dreamed of you."

"You dreamed? How? Tell me about this dream."

"I dreamed that you came into my room while I was asleep in bed, and kissed me!"

She continued to look at him intently a moment longer, as if she did not realize the full meaning of his words. Then--let us do her justice!--the blood rushed to her face, her cheeks flamed fiery red.

With her hands she veiled her eyes. She gave a little cry.

"_Ah, mon Dieu!_ It was you--I remember. _Quelle horreur!_"

There was silence. Before she removed her hands from her eyes she turned away. She stood with her back towards him, trifling with a brush which he had placed upon the table. She spoke scarcely above a whisper.

"Monsieur, I thought you were asleep."

"I was asleep. I saw you in a dream."

"Then did--did I wake you?"

"You must have done. I woke--you must forgive my saying so--with a kiss tingling on my lips." The lady put her hands up to her eyes again. "The dream had been so vivid I could not understand it. I got up to see if anyone was in the room."

"If you had caught me!"

"There was no one. But so acutely had your face impressed itself on my imagination that I took my sketch-book, and made a drawing of it then and there. In the morning I showed this drawing to a friend. He advised me to use it for a picture I did. That picture is 'A Vision of the Night'!"

"It is the most extraordinary thing, Monsieur; you will suppose I am a very peculiar person. It is but a lame explanation I have to offer. Of that I am but too conscious. But such as it is, I entreat that you will suffer me to give it you. Monsieur, I am married"--Mr. Lovell bowed. He did not mention that he was aware of that already--"to the most capricious husband in the world--to a husband whom I love, but whom I cannot respect." Mr. Lovell thought that that was good--from her. "He is a man who is extremely _difficile_, Monsieur. I do not think you have a word which expresses what I would say in English. He is extremely jealous; he is enraged that his wife should use the eyes which are in her head! The very day on which we arrived at Spa we had a dreadful quarrel. I will not speak of the treatment to which I was subjected; it is enough to say that he locked the door so that I should not leave the room--he wished to make of me a prisoner.

Monsieur, directly he was gone, I perceived that there were two doors to the room--the one which he had locked, and another, which I tried I found that it was open. Monsieur, when a prisoner desires to escape, he escapes by any road which offers. I was a prisoner; I desired to escape; I made use of the only road which I could find. I entered the door; I found myself in a room in which there was--how shall I say it?--in which there was a man asleep. Monsieur, it was you!"

It must be owned that at this point the lady certainly did look down.

"I was, that night, in a wicked mood. I glanced at you; I perceived that you were but a boy"--Mr. Lovell flushed: he did not consider himself a boy--"but a handsome boy." She peeped at him with malicious laughter in her eyes. "I regarded myself as your mother, or your sister, or your guardian angel. Monsieur will perceive how much I am the elder." Again, a glance of laughing malice from those bewitching eyes. "I am afraid it is too true that I approached the sleeping lips." There was silence. Then, so softly that her listener was only able to catch the words: "I pray that Monsieur will forgive me."

"There is nothing for which Madame needs forgiveness."

"Monsieur but says so to give me pleasure. But one thing Monsieur must permit me to observe: If every woman were to be rewarded, as I have been, for what I did, half the women in France would commit--a similar little indiscretion." Mr. Lovell was silent; he did not know exactly what to say. "Monsieur will permit me to regard him, from this day forward, as my friend? Mr. Gerald Lovell, permit me to introduce to you--the Vicomtesse d'Humieres!"

The lady favoured him with another sweeping curtsey.

"I have already the pleasure of being acquainted with Madame's name."

"From whom did you learn it? From the people at the hotel?"

"I but learned it a few minutes before Madame herself came here."

"So! From whom?"