"As a man I was guilty; as an artist, guiltless, for an artist, above all things, loves and serves his art, and considers all he sees as subservient to it. I came to Downsbury in quest of studies in still life. For years I have had an ideal of a face that I wished to paint in my best mood: a face after which all should wonder. I have searched cities and country; I have wandered in my quest for that face through other lands; and when I saw you under the tree, I was all the artist—all lost in art—for yours is the face I have been seeking for my canvas."
"Why, do you mean I would make a picture—a real picture?" demanded Doris, with studied simplicity.
"Yes; ten thousand times yes! Under this greenwood tree, your basket at your feet, your hat swinging in your hand, your eyes lifted—yes, a picture to be known and praised forever. Child, I will make your beauty immortal."
This was what she had dreamed.
A poet was singing her praises, and would do so, whether she played him false or not; and here was an artist to paint her for a world to admire.
Could she who so inspired men tie herself to the narrow bounds of one humble, rustic hearth? Never!
"May I paint you?" demanded the artist. "May I set you in canvas, in immortal youth and loveliness, to live years, perhaps centuries hence, in deathless beauty?"
"The picture—the face—will live! Where, in those far off ages, shall I be?" asked Doris, earnestly.
Gregory Leslie thought the word and mood strange.
"The best part of you is immortal," he said, gently.