“God bless you, darling!” he cried passionately; “you have saved me when I was tottering on the brink and ready to fall. The touch of your dear hand has drawn me back when all was over, as I thought. I will keep faith with you, Cornel. Forgive me, love! Heaven help me; how could I be so mad!”
There was a brightness directly after in his eyes, as he carefully bestowed the letter in his pocket-book and placed it in his breast.
“And they say the day of miracles is past, and that there is no magic in the world,” he cried proudly. “Poor fools! they don’t know. Lie there, little talisman. You are only a scrap of paper stained with ink, but you are a charm of the strongest magic. Bah! It was all a passing madness, and I have won. What a silly, weak, morbid state I was in,” he continued, as he stood in front of his picture, and snatched up palette and brushes. “Why, Cornel darling, you have burned up all the clouds with the bright sun of your dear love. And I can finish you now, my good old daub. Jupiter can easily have that hang-dog, cowardly, found-out look imported into his phiz. I feel as if I can see, and do it now. The nymphs are as good as anything I have done. I don’t always satisfy myself, but that background is jolly. I’ve got so much light and sunshine into it, such a dreamy, golden atmosphere effect, that it brightens the whole thing, and what a nuisance it is that old Turner ever lived! If he had never been born, my background would have been grand. As it is—well, it’s only an imitation. No, no; come, old fellow: say, a good bit of work by an honest student of old Turner’s style. Yes,” he continued, drawing back, “I think it will do. Even dear old Joe praised that; he said it wasn’t so bad. Poor old chap! I wish we were friends again. And as for my Juno, I think I can manage her. Montesquieu shall come—esquieu—askew—no, not askew; I’ll get her into a noble, dignified position somehow. I hope she has a good figure. While her face—why, Cornel, my darling, it shall be yours.”
He paused to stand thoughtfully before the great canvas, drawn out upon its easel into the best light cast down from the sky panes above, and let his mahlstick rest upon the picture just above the blank, paint-stained portion left for the principal figure.
“Queer way of working,” he said with a laugh, “finishing the surroundings before putting in the mainspring of my theme. That’s hardly fair, though, for I painted my Juno first—ah! how many times, and rubbed her out. Never mind; she must come strong now to stand out well in front of these figures. She must—she shall.”
He stood there motionless for a few minutes; and then, quite eagerly—
“Why not?” he said. “Too soft, sweet, and gentle-looking? Cornel, darling, it shall be an expiation of a fault, and some day in the future you shall stand before it and gaze in your own true face as I have painted you—made grand, crushing, majestic, full of scorn and contempt, as it would have been, had you stood face to face with me, awaking to the fact that I was utterly lost, unworthy of your love. I can—I will—paint that face, and that day, darling, when you turn to me with those questioning eyes, and tell me you could not have looked like this, you shall know the truth.”
The inspiration was there, and with wonderful skill and rapidity he began to sketch in the face glowing before him in his imagination. No model could have given him the power to paint in so swiftly those lineaments, which began to live upon the canvas as the hours went on. For he was lost to everything but the task before him, and he grew flushed and excited as the noble frowning brow threatened, and then by a few deft touches those wonderful liquid eyes began to blaze with passionate scorn. The ruddy, beautifully curved lips were parted, revealing the glistening teeth; and at last, how long after he could not tell, he shrank away from the great canvas, to gaze at the features he had limned, trembling, awe-stricken, knowing that his work was masterly, but asking himself whether the painting was his, or some occult spiritual deed of which he had been the mere animal mechanism, worked by the powers of evil to blast him for ever.
His lips were parched, his tongue and throat felt dry with the fever which burned within him, as he stood trying to gather the courage to seize a cloth and wipe out the face that gazed at him and made him shrink in his despair.
He dragged his eyes from the canvas, and looked wildly round the great studio, where all was silent as the grave. The bright light had passed away; and he knew that it must be about sunset, for all was cold and grey, save the shadows in the corners of the room, and they were black. Everything was growing dim and misty, save the face upon his canvas, and that stood out with its scornful, fierce anger, though, through it all, so wonderful had been the inspiration beneath whose influence he had worked, there was an intense look of passionate love and forgiveness; the eyes, while scornfully condemning and upbraiding, seemed to say, “I love you still, for you are and always will be mine.”