Perhaps it is time that the young artist's conduct at the Pantheon ball was explained.
As must have been already divined, he loved Esther Woodville—loved her with an exclusive, profound passion which was born on the same day that the girl made her appearance upon the stage of Drury Lane. Standing in a corner of the parterre, Frank had experienced those devouring sensations which have disturbed twenty-year-old hearts ever since the world began.
The passion which actresses inspire in young men of indigent circumstances and timid disposition is the most romantic and delightful of all, since it unites every impossibility and chimera.
The footlights seem an obstacle which it is impossible to surmount; possession appears an infeasible, madly absurd dream, the very thought of which produces vertigo. The unrecognized lover is not jealous of the comrades who elbow his idol and speak familiarly with her; he does not even consider the admirer or husband who awaits her behind the scenes. They find in her but a woman like unto all other women. The mistress of his heart is in his sight Juliet, Imogen, Ophelia, Desdemona. She imparts her youth and beauty to the rôle, lends poetry and passion to it. From such a mélange is born a perfectly adorable creature who only exists for a few hours for the public, but continues to live for the lover long after the curtain has fallen and when the actress has washed off her paint and is supping with a hearty appetite.
In this fashion had Frank loved Miss Woodville until the day that he had met her face to face in Reynolds's studio. From that moment the young girl replaced the artist in his mind, and he fell to loving her in another guise. Their lengthy chat on the day that Sir Joshua was absent from the studio had for the time being awakened certain hopes in his heart. Why should he not love her? Why should she not grow to regard life with his eyes? Little by little, however, without the slightest event interposing to undeceive him, he realized how poorly calculated were his modest lot and unceasing struggle with poverty to tempt a girl reared amidst adulation and covetousness, amidst circumstances which could not fail to nurture her vanity and her taste for luxury. \Many times had she returned to Sir Joshua's, and each time she had addressed him some few rapid words, always with a touch of embarrassment,—annoyed, as he fancied, at the recollection of that hour of freedom and intimacy, desirous perhaps of effacing it from her memory. The thought smote him to the heart, and, though accustomed to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, resignation came hard.
Proportionally as the great painter advanced in his work, Frank secretly copied the portrait of Esther. One morning, while busily engaged at his task, the source of mingled pleasure and pain, a light chuckling caused him to start suddenly and turn.
"You accursed gypsy!" he cried, turning pale with anger, "who permitted you to enter here? How dare you spy upon me?"
It was Rahab, who, together with her numerous vocations, joined that of model, and frequently posed for Sir Joshua. More than once, annoyed at the procrastination or laziness of his fair clients, the painter had set the head of some patrician dame or artist upon Rahab's beautiful body, a genuine living manikin whom he could pose and drape according to his fancy. Rahab had also consented to pose for Frank; and, although she professed disdain for Christians, her hard, ironical eyes sometimes softened as they rested upon the young man.
To-day she was not stirred by his anger, but with a shrug of her shoulders remarked:—
"Poor boy! She will never be yours."