IV
The days at the atelier had now a new interest for both students, and their work was manifestly the better for it. To Martha these days were filled with a glorious delight, which seemed to give her all that her nature craved; and if it had not been for sad thoughts of her brother and his loneliness, she would have felt that she could ask for nothing.
To have the princess painting near her, and to be able to look up and see her beautiful figure, with its sinuous grace, posed before her easel, and to receive from her now and then a brilliant smile of mutual comprehension, was quite enough of personal bliss for Martha Keene.
Martha had an ardent and romantic temperament, but she seemed to be capable of satisfying its needs vicariously. There undoubtedly are such women, though the like has possibly never existed in the other sex. For instance, it was a continual battle with her now to put down the temptation, which constantly assailed her, of imagining a meeting, an attraction, and finally a union between the brother who realized her romantic ideal of man and the friend who realized his complement in woman’s form. She knew it was impossible. She knew that Harold would never marry; and she even realized that if he could love again, after the manner in which he had loved one woman, he would, by that fact, compel her to lower her standard either of love or of him.
And yet Martha felt that the meeting and blending of these two lives would, if she could have seen it, have satisfied every need of her heart. She believed that her pleasure and contentment in looking on at such a union as this would give her the greatest joy that could be for her—would indeed, in a way, give her the feeling of satisfied love.
It was very hard to put down these imaginings; but she told herself that it must be done. Harold’s life and love had been given once, and she knew he was right in saying that they were not his to give again; and on the princess’s part, no doubt the idea would be a wild suggestion, indeed. Martha did not know what rigid laws of etiquette and convention might not bind the princess; and condescending as the latter had chosen to be with regard to herself, she felt that this beautiful lady would never do anything unworthy of her caste. Her husband, whether she had loved him or not, had no doubt been a great prince, whose name and title the woman on whom he had bestowed them would never consent to debase. The thing was hopeless and wrong, of course, and the idea must be put away from her. But it was hard to do, with her hero constantly in her mind, and her heroine constantly before her eyes.
One day, after an unusually hard morning’s work, the princess invited Martha to go home to lunch with her, and to spend the afternoon at the Louvre, looking together at the pictures which they had so often enjoyed apart.
When they reached the apartment in the Rue Presbourg, the princess was informed that her aunt had already finished her second breakfast, which she took with the regularity of clockwork, not depending upon the comings and goings of the rather erratic person who was the other member of the family. This the princess explained lightly, as she led the way to the dining-room. The servants by this time all knew Martha; and they looked upon her, as the friend of their mistress, with the most amiable glances. Not speaking the Russian language, Martha could show her good will only by a pleasant smile, in return for the evident pleasure which they showed in serving her.
The princess threw her wrap backward over the chair, as she sat at the head of the round table, with her slender figure against a background of dark sable, and her head, in its large plumed hat, standing out from a halo of many-hued old stained-glass in the window behind. Martha, sitting opposite, fell into an unconsciously intent scrutiny of her face.
It was certainly safe, Martha thought, to call this face beautiful, both for feature and character. The eyes were large, dark, brilliant, and fervidly suggestive. One wondered what those eyes had seen, were seeing, and were capable of discovering for others. The hair was a brilliant, waving brown, arranged in a loose mass that was still firm and lovely in its outline—hair, as Martha thought, that