The Belovéd Traitor

by Frank L. Packard

"Monsieur!" she cried out again, and struggled to free herself. "Monsieur, what are you doing?"

"Wait, I tell you!" he almost shouted.

Frightened before, she was terrified now, and besides she hated the man with all her strength, and her soul shrank from him because it was he who had so nearly killed Jean; but she had come to plead with him, she must not forget that, only—only he was acting so strangely. And then suddenly, startling her, she remembered that it was he who had said she was Jean's model. That was why he was staring so wildly first at her and then at the face of the girl with the drum, and back at her again, and then at the clay figure.

"It is so!" he said hoarsely. "It is so! But wait—wait!" His hands dropped from her shoulders, and he ran from one figure to another about the studio, pausing before each one to gaze at it fixedly and intently. "The lips—always the lips—always your lips—the wonderful, inscrutable lips that all France is forever raving about!"—the words came in sharp, broken snatches. "Never the face in its entirety, but always the lips—and always with the lips some additional feature, the forehead, or the poise, or the eyes—always you!"

At first she followed the man with her eyes in a sort of incredulous, fearsome wonder; and then slowly, seemingly without volition of her own, drawn to it as by a magnet, she turned to face and stare at the figure of the "Fille du Régiment." Was it true, could it be true that it was she, her lips that Jean had made there in those lips of clay? Was that what that strange sense of familiarity had meant, and which she had not understood? No, no—Jean had forgotten, forgotten long ago! It was not true, it was not possible! And yet—and yet they were her lips—her eyes would not lie to her. And this then was what had seemed to give a significance, that she could not explain at the time, to those words of Jean's of a little while ago. This man Paul Valmain had said she was Jean's model before she went upstairs, and then Jean had talked about the beacon. "It is a beacon—and it is for you, Marie-Louise, because it is you ... has it not those lips that I could fashion even in the dark?" he had said. She had not been able to connect the two things then; but now—now she knew. Jean's model—all through those two years she had been Jean's model! And yet how could it be possible! The very thought seemed to leave her abashed—it—it seemed as though she were committing a sacrilege to let herself imagine that she, who was only Marie-Louise Bernier, a fishergirl of Bernay-sur-Mer, was the model for Jean's beautiful work that made all the great people of France so proud to call him one of themselves! It was not strange that she had failed to understand what that sense of familiarity in the clay faces had meant—she would never, never have dared to think of such a thing by herself—and it would have been so far away, that thought, that of itself it would never have come. Why was she suddenly so weak now, as though a wondrous joy, so great that it overwhelmed her, was surging upon her—and why was that cold fear, that seemed to tell the joy that it was trespassing where it had no place, stirring within her? What did this thing mean for her—that those lips of clay were hers! It brought so much, so many different emotions, and each of them was so overpowering in itself, and they all came crowding so upon her at once, that it seemed she must cry out in her cruel bewilderment.

And then Paul Valmain was standing before her again.

"So!"—he flung out his arms. "So—it is out at last, the secret! He has kept you well under cover, mademoiselle!"

The words came to her with a shock, rousing her from her thoughts. He did not understand. He must not think that Jean knew; because that was why she was there now—to tell him that Jean must not know.

"No!" she said quickly. "No, no, monsieur! And, oh, monsieur, you must not let—let Jean know that I was here to-night. It—it is some mistake about—about the model, monsieur. He has not seen me since he has been in Paris, and—"

"What!" he broke in harshly. "You deny that you have been coming here?"