It was early at the Portrait Show. It was so early that what few people were already there had the place practically to themselves. There were only three or four in the large room at the head of the stairs, which at a later hour of the afternoon was invariably crowded, and where was hung that picture which had attracted so much attention, partly from the great fame of the artist, still more, perhaps, from the beauty of the subject.
A young girl in a long, white gown of some soft, clinging stuff, stood against the background of a dark green velvet curtain. There was no relief to the dead whiteness of the gown, and the roses that she held were white; all that brilliancy of color, for which this great artist is famous, he had expended upon the deep red-gold tints of the hair, the vivid scarlet of the lips, the warm creamy tones of the skin, as they were thrown into full relief by the dark background. The painter had lingered, with all the skill at his command, on the rounded, dimpled curves of the neck and arms, nor had he forgotten the haughty little turn of the head, which gave a characteristic touch to the picture. Seen at a glance, it was aglow with life and color, very human, very mundane, the embodiment of health and bloom. A study in flesh-tints, one critic had carelessly pronounced it, and nothing more. It was only when you looked at the eyes that you caught a discordant note, which, if you dwelt upon it, contradicted the joyous effect of the rest; a look, a latent shadow which the great artist had either surprised or imagined, and transferred perhaps unconsciously to his canvas, where, if you saw it at all, it held you with a haunting sense of mystery, the fascination of an unsolved problem. "What does it mean," a man said to himself that afternoon, "and did —— really put it in, or do I, with my usual superstition, imagine it? Am I the only person who sees it, or do others?"
Two young girls, who jostled up against him just then evidently did not.
"Portrait of Miss Van Vorst," said one, reading from her catalogue, "by ——." She passed the artist's name without recognition, as she delightedly pressed her companion's arm. "Say, Mamie, that's Elizabeth Van Vorst, you know, the beauty. I've seen lots about her in the papers."
"You don't say so?" returned the other, who was apparently less up-to-date. "I thought she must be one of the swells, but I didn't know the name. She's pretty isn't she?—but doesn't her nose turn up too much?—and I don't think much of her dress, it's so kind of simple."
The man who had been standing when they came up in front of the picture, turned frowning aside, and found himself face to face with the original. For an instant each stared at the other in silence, and it might have been noticed by a careful observer that the man was at once the more disconcerted and the less surprised of the two.
"So I see you have achieved fame," he said, recovering himself almost immediately and smiling, as he glanced at the two girls who were still criticizing Elizabeth's features, all unconscious that the subject of their remarks was within hearing.
"Yes, fame," she returned, lightly "of a kind that you despise." She, too, was quite herself again—that flippant, frivolous self, at least, which he had always the power to awaken.
"I suppose I'm a crank," he admitted. "I really don't like to hear my friends talked about, by their first name by people who have read about them in the papers."
"Oh, that," she said, carelessly "is a necessary penalty of fame."