“My soul!” she murmured, really much moved.
Of course she knew that the portrait flattered her; but she felt as Lauras and Leonoras and Lucastas no doubt felt when their poets celebrated them under ideal forms in which their friends and families may have had trouble to recognize them. The pride of having inspired an immortal masterpiece must have stirred their hearts to gratitude toward the gifted beings able to see them disencumbered from their faults, and fix them for the contemplation of their own eyes and their neighbors’ as they had been at the best moment of their brightest hour.
Aurora, clasping her hands in a delight that could find no words to express it, made a sound like the coo of a dove
In the days when La Grande Mademoiselle was painted as Minerva, Aurora’s portrait might have been called “Mrs. Hawthorne as Venus.” The expression of her face 203was as void of history as the fair goddess’s. The tender beam of pleasure lighting it suggested that she might that moment have been awarded the apple. The portrait was, nevertheless, in a way, “Aurora all over,” as Estelle pronounced it; but an Aurora whose imperfections had been smoothed out of existence, and with them her humor; an Aurora whose good working complexion, as she called it, had been turned to lilies and roses, her hair of mortal gold to immortal sunshine, and those sagacious orbs of blue, which made friends for her by their twinkle, into melting azure stars.
The painter had, besides, glorified every detail of the setting: the rich fabric of the dress, the creamy feathers of the fan, even the roses of the breast-knot. The pearls and diamonds he had amused himself with making larger than they were, and filled these with a winking fire, those with a lambent luster. But Gerald had no mind when he indulged in satire to be gross. The whole was dainty, as shimmering as a soap-bubble, and of a fineness that rightly commended it to lovers of beautiful surfaces.
“I don’t care,” burst from Aurora, as if in reply to an inaudible criticism, “I just love it! I don’t care if it is flattered. I could hug you for it, Gerald Fane. I think it’s perfectly lovely. It’s going to be a solid satisfaction. By and by, when my double chin has caught up with me, and I’m a homely old thing, and nobody knows what I did look like in my prime, I’ll have this to show them. By that time, with my brain weakening, I hope I shall have come to thinking it was as like me as two peas. There’s some reason for living now.”
Every caller was taken to see the portrait, and heard Mrs. Hawthorne’s opinion of the talented artist. The majority 204of visitors candidly shared her admiration, though not one woman among them can have failed to say to herself that the portrait was flattered. But with a portrait of oneself to have executed, who would not prefer the brush that makes beautiful?
Interest spread in the painter, whose work few even of the Florentines knew except from hearsay. No one who saw Mrs. Hawthorne’s portrait was very clearly aware–such is fame!–that it was for Fane a departure. Until it came to Leslie. She stood a long time before the painting, then exclaimed:
“What a joke!”