Hastily removing his coat and the wide felt hat which he always wore on the street, he hung them on a rack in the adjoining room, and donning his velvet studio jacket, returned to the easel. Seizing his palette and brushes he fell to work rapidly, and with the enthusiasm of one who is in love with his task.
As he dashed on the broad sweeps of color from his palette, the background gradually assumed the effect of having faded away, and the rare face before it to have become a thing of flesh and blood. It was a marvel of skill. He had never done anything like this before. He became so absorbed in his work that he forgot the passing hours. The background of the portrait complete, he began adding touches of light and shadow and color to the drapery, to the hair, to the perfect features. He felt that he had never painted half so well. It seemed to him that he was inspired. He remembered the story of the artist who had painted the portrait of his beloved, drawing the tints so truly from her life, that when he had finished and turned to look at her with an exclamation of triumph on his lips, she was dead. It seemed to him at this moment that he was drawing his tints from her very life. That the intense workings of his brain must in some manner affect her own. He paused and his hand trembled. She was ill; what if she were to die! Pshaw! it was but a fable. He would paint the picture as truly, but only that the world might bow before the beauty of his mistress. He would exhibit it in Paris, and the multitude would worship the beautiful face that should win him a world-wide fame. Then he would take it away from the gaping throng and lay it, with the fame it brought him, at her feet.
The little clock on the mantel had long since chimed noon, and the hour hand had crept around the circle nearly to five before he finally laid aside his brushes and palette, and stepped back to view his finished work.
"It is wonderful—wonderful," he said, aloud. "Oh, my precious darling!"
There was a sound behind him as of some one choking. He turned and stood face to face with Evelin March. She was very pale, and her eyes burned like two stars.
"Who is that woman?" she said, fiercely.
He knew that she had overheard him, but he endeavored to address her calmly. He felt the cowardliness of his nature rising, and he cursed himself inwardly.
"I—I was not expecting you to-day, Evelin," he stammered; "to-morrow, you know, is the day for your sitting."
She did not take her eyes from the portrait; she had gone very close to it and as she turned upon him to reply there was a mingled look of terror and ferocity in her face.
"No, it is quite evident that you did not expect me, and that you were too much absorbed to remember or care when my sitting was due. And now you will please to answer my question. Who is that woman?"