Poussin’s head sank on her breast; he seemed to be overpowered by some intolerable joy or sorrow.
“Listen,” she cried, plucking at the sleeve of Poussin’s threadbare doublet, “I told you, Nick, that I would lay down my life for you; but I never promised you that I in my lifetime would lay down my love.”
“Your love?” cried the young artist.
“If I showed myself thus to another, you would love me no longer, and I should feel myself unworthy of you. Obedience to your fancies was a natural and simple thing, was it not? Even against my own will, I am glad and even proud to do thy dear will. But for another, out upon it!”
“Forgive me, my Gillette,” said the painter, falling upon his knees; “I would rather be beloved than famous. You are fairer than success and honors. There, fling the pencils away, and burn these sketches! I have made a mistake. I was meant to love and not to paint. Perish art and all its secrets!”
Gillette looked admiringly at him, in an ecstasy of happiness! She was triumphant; she felt instinctively that art was laid aside for her sake, and flung like a grain of incense at her feet.
“Yet he is only an old man,” Poussin continued; “for him you would be a woman, and nothing more. You—so perfect!”
“I must love you indeed!” she cried, ready to sacrifice even love’s scruples to the lover who had given up so much for her sake; “but I should bring about my own ruin. Ah! to ruin myself, to lose everything for you!... It is a very glorious thought! Ah! but you will forget me. Oh I what evil thought is this that has come to you?”
“I love you, and yet I thought of it,” he said, with something like remorse, “Am I so base a wretch?”
“Let us consult Père Hardouin,” she said.