Chapter Fifteen.
After the Lapse.
Dale’s hands trembled, and there were feverish marks in his cheeks as he dressed next morning, and then walked into his sitting-room and rang.
The breakfast things were laid, and in a few minutes Keren-Happuch came through the studio with his coffee and toast, while an hour later, without daring to speak to him, she bore the almost untouched breakfast away.
As soon as he was alone, he made an effort to master himself, and walked firmly into the studio, drew forward his easel, and after removing the curtain, stood there to study his work and criticise and mark its failings.
He found none to mark, but stood there waiting for its living, breathing model, knowing well enough that he must check the madness attacking him—at once, in its incipient stage.
“I’m as weak a fool as other men,” he muttered. “Bah! I can easily disillusionise myself. I’ll insist upon her removing her veil to-day. It is that and the foolish wish to see her face that has upset me, I being in a weak, nervous state. Once I’ve finished and had the work framed, I really will give up painting for a few weeks and rest.”
That maddening day passed, but no model came, and as soon as it was dark he went out, but not until the last post had come in that was likely to bring him a letter of excuse from his sitter.
He went straight to the street where Jaggs lodged, to learn that he was away from home. The people of the house thought that he had gone down somewhere in the country to sit for an artist who was doing a sea-picture, but they were not sure whether it was Surrey or Cornwall.
Somewhere Leather Lane way, Jaggs had told him that the father lived. Perhaps he was ill, and his child was nursing him. But how could he go about asking at random in that neighbourhood about the missing model?
But he did, seeking out first one and then another handsome picturesque vagabond belonging to the artistic Italian colony, and questioning them, but without avail. They had never heard the name.
He tried a lodging-house or two, upon whose steps Italian women were seated, dark-eyed, black-haired, and with showy glass bead necklaces about their throats. But no; those who could understand him neither knew the name, nor had they heard of a Sardinian patriot whose daughter went out to sit.
Dale returned to his rooms to pass another sleepless night, hoping that the next morning would put an end to his anxiety, fever, or excitement, whichever it was—for he savagely refrained from confessing to himself that he grasped what his trouble might be.
But the morning came, and seven more mornings, to find him seated before his unfinished picture, practising a kind of self-deceit, and telling himself that he was feverish, haggard, and mentally careworn on account of his dread of not being able to finish his picture as satisfactorily as he could wish.
He had tried hard during the interval, but, in spite of all his efforts, he had been able to get tidings of neither Jaggs nor the model the man had introduced; while to make his state the more wretched, Pacey had not been near him, and for some unaccountable reason Leronde, too, had stayed away.
He was seated, wild-eyed and despairing, one morning, when Keren-Happuch came running in, breathless with her exertions to reach the studio, and bear the news which she felt would be like life to the young artist.
“Here she is, sir!” panted the girl, “she’s come at last;” and then ran down to open the front door.
Dale staggered and turned giddy, but listened with eyes fixed upon the door, hardly daring to believe till he saw it open, and the dark, closely veiled figure enter quickly.
Then there was a reaction, and he asked himself why he had suffered like this. What was the poorly dressed woman who had just entered to him?
His lips parted, but he did not speak, only waited.
“Am I too late?” she said, in her strongly accented French. “Some other? The picture finished?”
“No,” he said coldly; and he wondered at her collected manner as he caught the glint of a pair of searching eyes. “I have waited for you. Why have you been so long?”
“I have been ill,” she said simply, and her tones suggested suffering.
“Ill?” he cried excitedly; and he took a step towards her with outstretched hand. “I am very sorry.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly, and ignoring the extended hand. “I am once more well, and I must be quick. Shall I stay one more hour every day and you pay me more? Oh, no. For the same!”
“Yes, pray do,” he said huskily, and he thrust his hand into his pocket to pay her in advance according to his custom, but she ignored the money as she had previously passed his hand without notice, and after pointing to the door, she hurried through into his room, to return in a wonderfully short space of time and take her place upon the dais.
Dale began to paint eagerly, feverishly, so as to lose himself in his work, but in a few minutes he raised his eyes to see the glint of those which seemed to be watching him suspiciously through the thick veil, as if ready to take alarm at the slightest word or gesture on his part, and at once the power to continue his work was gone. He felt that he must speak, and in a deep husky voice he began—
“You have been very ill, then?”
“Yes, monsieur,” curtly and distantly.
“I wondered very much at not seeing you. I was alarmed.”
“I do not see why monsieur should feel alarm.”
“Of course, on account of my picture,” he said awkwardly. Then laying down his palette and brushes, he saw that the model gave a sudden start, but once more stood motionless as he took out his pocket-book, and withdrew the pencil.
“Will you give me your address?”
“Why should monsieur wish for my address?”
“To communicate with you. If I had known, I should have been spared much anxiety. Tell me, and I will write it down.”
“With that of the women who wait monsieur’s orders? No!”
This was spoken so imperiously that Dale replaced the pencil and book, and took up palette and brushes.
“As you will,” he said, and he began to paint once more.
But the power to convey all he wished to the canvas had gone, and he turned to her again.
“Tell me more about yourself,” he said. “You are a foreigner, and friendless here in England: I know that, but tell me more. I may be of service to you.”
“Monsieur is being of service to me. He pays me for occupying this degrading position to which I am driven.”
There was so much angry bitterness in her tones that Dale was again silenced; but his pulse beat high, and as he applied his brush to his canvas from time to time, there were only results that he would have to wipe away.
“I am sorry you consider the task degrading,” he said at last. “I have endeavoured to make it as little irksome as I could.”
“Monsieur has been most kind till now,” she said quickly; and then, in a bitterly contemptuous tone, “monsieur forgets that I am waiting. His pencil is idle.”
He started angrily, and went on painting, but the eyes were still watching him, and, strive all he would, there was the intense desire growing once more to see that face which was hidden from him so closely. He knew that he ought to respect his visitor’s scruples, but he could not, and again and again he shivered with a sensation nearly approaching to dread. But the wish was still supreme. That black woollen veil piqued him, and after a few minutes of worthless work, he asked her if she was weary.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Then we will rest a few minutes.”
“No, monsieur; go on. I am your slave for the time.”
He started at her words, and as much at her tone, which was as full of hauteur as if she were some princess. But now, instead of this driving him in very shame to continue his work, it only impressed him the more. There was a mystery about her and her ways. The almost insolent contempt with which she treated him made him angry, and his anger increased to rage as he fully realised how weak and mortal he was as man. He tried not to own it to himself, but he knew that a strange passion had developed itself within him, and with mingled pleasure and pain he felt that this beautiful woman could read him through and through, and that hour by hour her feelings toward him became more and more those of contempt.
He did not stop to reason, for he was rapidly becoming blind to everything but his unconquerable desire to see her face. There were moments when he felt ready to rage against himself for his weakness and, as he called it, folly; but all this was swept away, and at last, as the sitting went on and the model haughtily refused to leave the dais for a time to rest, he found himself asking whether there was not after all truth in the old legends, and whether, enraged by his shrinking from Lady Dellatoria’s passionate avowals, the author of all evil had not sent some beautiful demon to tempt him and show him how weak he was after all. It was maddening, and at last he threw down palette and brushes to begin striding up and down the room, carefully averting his eyes from his model, who stood there as motionless as if she were some lovely statue.
At last he returned to his canvas.
“You must be tired now,” he said hurriedly. “Rest for a while.”
“I’m not tired now,” she replied coldly, “if monsieur will continue.”
“I cannot paint to-day,” he said hoarsely. “You trouble me. What I have done is valueless.”
“I trouble monsieur?” she said coldly. “Am I not patient?—can I be more still?”
He made a mighty effort over self, and for the moment conquered. Seizing his brushes and palette, he began to paint once more, but in a reckless way, as if merely to keep himself occupied, but as he turned his eyes from his canvas from time to time to study the beautiful model, standing there in that imperious attitude, strange, mysterious, and weird, with the black enmasking above the graceful voluptuous figure, he lost more and more the self-command he had maintained.
For a few minutes he told himself that he was mistaken, that her eyes must be closed; but it was, he knew too well, a mere mental subterfuge: they were gleaming through that black network, and piercing him to the very soul.
He could bear it no longer, and again throwing down brushes and palette, he paced the room for a minute or two before turning to the marble figure standing so motionless before him.
“I tell you I cannot paint,” he cried angrily. “It is as if you were casting some spell over me. I must see your face. Why do you persist in this fancy? Your masked countenance takes off my attention. I beg—I insist—remove that veil.”
“I do not quite understand monsieur,” she said coldly. “He speaks in a language that is not mine, neither is it his. He confuses me. I am trying to be a patient model, but everything is wrong to-day. Will he tell me what I should do to give him satisfaction?”
“Take off that veil!” cried Dale.
The model caught up the cloak and flung it around her shoulders.
“Now, quick!” cried Dale excitedly, “that veil!”
“Monsieur is ill. Shall I call for help?”
“No, no, I am not ill. Once more I beg, I pray of you—take off that veil.”
“But monsieur is so strange—so unlike himself,” she cried, as, taking another step forward, Dale caught the hand which held the cloak in his.
“Now!” he cried wildly, with his eyes flashing, and trying to pierce the woollen mask—“that veil!” For a moment the warm soft hand clung to his convulsively, and the other rose with the arm in a graceful movement towards the shrouded face; but, as if angry with herself for being about to yield to his mad importunity, she snatched away the hand he held, and with the other thrust him back violently.
“It is infamous!” she cried, with her eyes flashing through the veil. “It is an insult. Monsieur, it is to the woman you love that you should speak those words;” and, with an imperious gesture, she stepped down from the dais as if it had been her throne, and with her face turned toward Dale, she walked with calm dignity, her head thrown back, and the folds of the cloak gathered round her, to the inner door, passed through, and for the first time, when it was closed, he heard the lock give a sharp snap as it was shot into the socket Dale stood motionless in the middle of the studio, his eyes bloodshot and his pulses throbbing heavily, unable for some little time either to think or move.
“Yes,” he muttered, as he grew calmer; “it was an insult, and she revenges herself upon me. An hour ago I was to her a chivalrous man in whose honour she could have faith. Now I am degraded in her eyes to the level of the brute, and—she trusts me no longer. Do I love this woman whose face I have never seen, or am I going mad?”
But he was alone now, and he grew more calm as the minutes glided by; and once more making a tremendous effort to command himself, he waited as patiently as he could for the opening of the door.
In a few minutes there was the sharp snap again of the lock being turned, the door was thrown open, and the tall dark figure swept out into the great studio with head erect and indignant mien.
She had to pass close by him to reach the farther door, but she looked straight before her, completely ignoring his presence till in excited tones he said—“One moment—pray stop.”
She had passed him, but she arrested her steps and half turned her head as a queen might, to listen to some suppliant who was about to offer his petition.
“Forgive me,” he panted. “I was not myself. You will forget all this. Do not let my madness drive you away.”
He was standing with his hands extended as if to seize her again, but she gathered her cloak tightly round her, so that he could see once more the curves and contour of the form he had transferred to canvas, as she passed on to the door, where she stopped and waited for him, according to his custom, to turn the key.
Her mute action and gesture dragged him to the door as if he were completely under her influence; and, throwing it open, he once more said pleadingly, and in a low deep voice which trembled from the emotion by which he was overcome—
“Forgive me: I was half mad.”
But she made no sign. Walking swiftly now, she passed out on to the landing, descended the staircase, and as he stood listening, he heard the light step and the rustling of her garments, till she reached the heavy front door, which was opened and closed with a heavy, dull, echoing sound.
But still Dale did not move. He stood as if bound there by the spell of which he had spoken, till all at once he uttered a faint cry, snatched his hat, and followed her out into the street.
Too late. There was no sign of the black cloaked figure, and, after hurrying in different directions for several minutes, he returned to his studio utterly crushed.
“Gone!” he muttered, as he threw himself into a chair. “I shall never see her more. Great heavens! Do I love this woman? Am I so vile?”
“Please, sir, may I come in?”
Dale started up and tried to look composed, as little Keren-Happuch entered with a note in her hand.
“One o’ them scented ones, sir,” said the girl. “It was in the letter-box. I found it two hours ago, but I did not like to bring it in.”
As soon as Dale was alone, his eyes fell upon the Contessa’s well-known hand, and, without opening the letter, he gazed at it, and recalled the past.
At last his lips parted, and he said thoughtfully—
“Loved me with an unholy love. It is retribution! She must have felt as I do now.”