This went on for about a couple of hours—an orgie of work on his side, of excited persistence on hers. Her rival in the clay grew in life and daring under her eyes, rousing in her, whenever she was allowed to rest a minute and look, a new intoxication with herself. They hardly talked. He was too much absorbed in what he was doing; and she also was either bent upon her task, or choked by wild gusts of jealous and revengeful thought. Every now and then as she stood there, in her attitude of eager listening, the wall of the studio would fade before her eyes, and she would see nothing but a torturing vision of David at Fontainebleau, wrapt up in 'that creature,' and only remembering his sister to rejoice that he had shaken her off. Ah! How could she sufficiently avenge herself! how could she throw all his canting counsels to the winds with most emphasis and effect!
At last a curious thing happened. Was it mere nervous reaction after such a strain of will and passion, or was it the sudden emergence of something in the sister which was also common to the brother—a certain tragic susceptibility, the capacity for a wild melancholy? For, in an instant, while she was thinking vaguely of Madame Cervin and her money affairs, despair seized her—shuddering, measureless despair—rushing in upon her, and sweeping away everything else before it. She tottered under it, fighting down the clutch of it as long as she could. It had no words, it was like a physical agony. All that was clear to her for one lurid moment was that she would like to kill herself.
The studio swam before her, and she dropped into the chair behind her.
Montjoie gave a protesting cry.
'Twenty minutes more!—Courage!'
Then, as she made no answer, he went up to her and put a violent hand on her shoulder—beside himself.
'You shall not be tired, I tell you. Look up! look at me!'
Under the stimulus of his master's tone she slowly recovered herself—her great black eyes lifted. He gazed into them steadily; his voice sank.
'You belong to me,' he said with breathless rapidity. 'Do you understand? What is the matter with you? What are those tears?'
A cry of nature broke from her.