She pointed to the canvas as she spoke, and Dale involuntarily turned to see the counterfeit presentment of Lady Dellatoria looking at him from the group with indignant scorn, and as if enraged at his mad passion for the model whose steps were now heard as the girl slipped out.
“It is fate!” muttered Dale, as the door was flung open, and the closely veiled and cloaked figure stood before him.
For some moments neither spoke. The model stood just within the closed door, proud and imperious in her pose, and with the glint of her eyes flashing through the thick veil, while, a prey to his emotion, Armstrong strove to find words as the struggle within him continued.
He would master himself, he thought. It was madness, and he called upon his manhood to protect this woman, who trusted to him, from a repetition of his last insult.
“You have returned, then,” he said to her coldly, but with his voice trembling.
“Yes, monsieur,” she replied, in her peculiarly accented French. “It was necessary. Monsieur wishes me to continue?”
He made a sign toward the door at the other end of the studio, and she seemed to hesitate, but the next moment she walked firmly across to the room and disappeared, while Dale fastened the outer door.
Then mechanically drawing the easel into its proper position in the light, he took up palette and brushes, and stood gazing straight before him, his nerves astrain, and pulses beating with a heavy dull throb.
His back was to the entrance of his room, and with a mist before his eyes he waited, ignorant of how the time passed till he heard the door behind him open, and the rustling sound of the heavy cloak as it swept over the rug-covered floor.
Then, with every sense at its acutest pitch, he felt her approach till she was close behind his chair on her way to the dais.