Lily, bending low, discerned in the light from the fire the character of the two pictures. Each was the portrait of a woman, painted in the smooth, skilful, slightly hard manner of Ingres. Yet there was a difference, which the connoisseur’s eye of Lily must have detected. They were cleverly done with a too great facility. But for that one might almost have said they were the work of a genius. Clearly the same woman had posed for both. In one she wore an enormous drooping hat, tilted a little over one eye. In the other she wore a barbaric crown and robes of Byzantine splendor.
Madame Blaise stood by with the air of a great art collector displaying his treasures. “They are beautiful, aren’t they?” she said. “Superb! You know I understand these things. I have never shown them to any one in years. I am showing them to you because I know you understand these things. I have seen your house. I have seen your beautiful things. You see it is the same woman who posed for both.... The one is called ‘The Girl in the Hat’ ... the other is ‘The Byzantine Empress.’ Theodora, you know, who was born a slave girl.”
LXV
LILY, it seemed, had scarcely heard her. She had taken one of the pictures on her lap and was examining it minutely. She held it close to her and then at a little distance. Madame Blaise stood surveying her treasures proudly, her face lighted by a look of satisfaction at Lily’s profound interest.
“I wonder,” said the old woman presently, “if you see what I see.”
For a moment Lily did not answer. She was still fascinated by the pictures. At last she looked up. “Do you mean the woman is like me? Did you see it too?”
Madame Blaise assumed a secretive expression. “Yes,” she said. “I have known it all along ... ever since I saw you. But I never told any one. I kept it as a secret for you.” And she spread her skinny hands in an exhibitive gesture, full of satisfaction, of pride, even of triumph.
The likeness was unmistakable. Indeed, upon closer examination it was nothing short of extraordinary. It might have been the Lily of ten years earlier, when she was less heavy and opulent. The Byzantine Empress had the same soft bronze hair, the same green-white skin, the same sensuous red lips.
“It is like me when I was younger.”
“Very much,” observed Madame Blaise, and then with the air of an empress bestowing a dazzling favor, she added, “I am going to give them to you.”