Sophy stood before the portrait, dumb with misery. What did he mean—what could he mean by placing the singer’s portrait there, the crowning gem of his luxurious rooms, a portrait which even her ignorant eye told her must be by the brush of a master, so bold and brilliant was the handling? Even the easel, with its costly draping of orange and gold, was a work of art. What right had he to exhibit such a portrait; the portrait of an improper young woman, in all probability?
She felt sorry that she had accepted his invitation. She felt as if she had been brought to a house which was hardly fit for her to enter. And yet there were the Montfords and Lady Hartley chattering at their ease in the next room; so it could hardly be “bad form” to come here.
“What do you think of the likeness?” asked Sefton, lolling against a tall Versailles chair, and contemplating the brilliant face in the picture with a smile.
“I suppose it is a very good likeness,” said Sophy, “but of a vulgar face—very handsome, no doubt; nobody can deny that—but quite peuple.”
“Yes, it is peuple. That is one of its charms. It has all the fire and freshness of an unsophisticated race, generations of fishermen, sailors, gondoliers, all that there is of a frank free life between sea and sky. You can’t get such beauty as that from a race reared indoors. It is an open-air loveliness, as rich in grace and colouring as one of those sea-flowers that unfold their living petals under the clear bright water.”
“You admire her very much?” faltered Sophy.
“Yes, I admire her very much. You and I have got on so well together, Miss Marchant, that I feel I may talk to you with all the freedom of friendship—and confide in you as I have confided in no one else. I do admire that woman, have admired her ever since she made her first appearance at the Apollo. I began by liking to hear her sing, liking to watch her bright spontaneous acting, like the acting of a clever child in its naturalness. Even her beauty charmed me less than that delicious spontaneity which struck a new chord in the genius of the stage. I went night after night to see her and hear her, without fear of danger; and one day I awoke and found myself her slave. I love her as I never loved before—not even when I used to fancy myself in love with your charming sister. Against every other love, a selfish desire to retain my liberty, a vacillating temper, which made the desire of to-morrow unlike the desire of yesterday, have prevailed; but against the love I bear that woman,” pointing to the laughing face in that picture, “reason has been powerless. Another man in my position might have tried to do what other men have been doing, ever since the first girl-Desdemona disgusted John Evelyn and began the long line of actresses who have charmed the civilized world. Another man might have tried to win her by dishonourable means. I was not base enough for that.”
Sophy crimsoned, remembering that dark story of the farmer’s daughter, which Nancy had related to her, that well-meaning woman not being over scrupulous in her communications to the ear of girlhood.
She waited silently, and Sefton went on, looking at the portrait, not at the woman to whom he was talking. An angry glow was on his cheek. An angry light was in his eyes. The thought of the social sacrifice he had been prepared to make and the futility of his offer lashed him to fury.
“I would not degrade her by a dishonourable proposal. No—though I knew she was not spotless—though I knew her as the mother of a nameless child. She was all the world to me, and what social consideration should a man set against that which is his all of happiness or hope? I asked her to be my wife, offered her my place in society, my passionate love, a life’s devotion; and she refused me—refused me after more than a year of friendship, a friendship which had seemingly brought us very near to each other.”