Paint, artist, paint! Let your brushes fly! None can promise you she shall ever look quite like this again. Catch the lines,—the waving masses and dark coils of that loose-bound hair; the poise of head and neck; the eloquent sway of the form; the folds of garments that no longer hide, but are illumined by, the plenitude of an inner life and grace; the elastic feet; the ethereal energy and discipline of arms and shoulders; the supple wrists; the very fingers quivering on the strings; the rapt face, and the love-inspired eyes.
Claude, Claude! when every bird in forest and field knows the call of its mate, can you not guess the meaning of those strings? Must she open those sealed lips and call your very name—she who would rather die than call it?
He does not understand. Yet, without understanding, he answers. He rises from his seat; he moves to the window; he will not tiptoe or peep; he will be bold and bad. Brazenly he lifts the curtain and looks down; and one, one only—not the artist and not the patroness of art, but that one who would not lift her eyes to that window for all the world’s wealth—knows he is standing there, listening and looking down. He counts himself all unseen, yet presently shame drops the curtain. He turns away, yet stands hearkening. The music is about to end. The last note trembles on the air. There is silence. Then someone moves from a chair, and then the single cry of admiration and delight from the player’s companion is the player’s name,—
“Marguerite Beausoleil!”
Hours afterward there sat Claude in the seat where he had sunk down when he heard that name. The artist’s visitors had made a long stay, but at length they were gone. And now Claude, too, rose to go out. His steps were heard below, and presently the painter’s voice called persuadingly up:—
“St. Pierre! St. Pierre! Come, see.”
They stood side by side before the new work. Claude gazed in silence. At length he said, still gazing:
“I’ll buy it when ’tis finish’.”
But the artist explained again that it was being painted for Marguerite’s friend.
“For what she want it?” demanded Claude. The Spaniard smiled and intimated that the lady probably thought he could paint. “But at any rate,” he went on to say, “she seemed to have a hearty affection for the girl herself, whom,” he said, “she had described as being as good as she looked.” Claude turned and went slowly out.