The Tiger Lily Part 11

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 compa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sion 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 la.s.sie, 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, s.m.u.tty 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 RuA."

"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 naive 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, UuSuA."

"For you, sir," she said; and she looked at him wistfully, as in an emotional way he s.n.a.t.c.hed the letter from her hand and pressed it to his lips.

"Salvation!" he muttered, as he turned away to go to the inner room.

"G.o.d 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 ap.r.o.n on the bal.u.s.trade, 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.

"G.o.d bless you, darling!" he cried pa.s.sionately; "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 sc.r.a.p of paper stained with ink, but you are a charm of the strongest magic. Bah! It was all a pa.s.sing 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 n.o.ble, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 n.o.ble frowning brow threatened, and then by a few deft touches those wonderful liquid eyes began to blaze with pa.s.sionate 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.