"Cosmo de Medicis"—he repeated, slowly—"my patron, would scarcely thank me for the avowals I have made to his fair ward!—one whom he intends to honour with his own alliance. I am here by his order to paint the portrait of his future bride!—not to look at her with the eyes of a lover. But the task is too difficult—"
A little sound escaped her, like a smothered cry of pain. He turned towards her.
"Something in your face,"—he said—"a touch of longing in your sweet eyes, has made me risk telling you all, so that you may at least choose your own way of love and life—for there is no real life without love."
Suddenly she rose and confronted him—and once again, as in a magic mirror, I saw MY OWN REFLECTED PERSONALITY. There were tears in her eyes,—yet a smile quivered on her mouth.
"My beloved!"—she said—and then paused, as if afraid.
A look of wonder and rapture came on his face like the light of sunrise, and I RECOGNISED THE NOW FAMILIAR FEATURES OF SANTORIS! Very gently he laid down his palette and brushes and stood waiting in a kind of half expectancy, half doubt.
"My beloved!" she repeated—"Have you not seen?—do you not know? O my genius!—my angel!—am I so hard to read?—so difficult to win?"
Her voice broke in a sob—she made an uncertain step forward, and he sprang to meet her.
"I love you, love you!"—she cried, passionately—"Let the whole world forsake me, if only you remain! I am all yours!—do with me as you will!"
He caught her in his arms—straining her to his heart with all the passion of a long-denied lover's embrace—their lips met—and for a brief space they were lost in that sudden and divine rapture that comes but once in a lifetime,—when like a shivering sense of cold the name again was whispered: