Whether or not this was the proposal she had expected, the mistress of Pampeln trembled slightly.
As the princess did not reply, the painter added:
"You would not have me paint a masterpiece, then?"
The artist had spoken the words in so fervid and exalted a tone, that the princess, halting abruptly, and plunging as it were her eyes into Paul's, said, in a firm, vibrating voice:
"You love me, Monsieur Meyrin. That is what your request poorly hides."
"Madame."
"Let me speak. Neither of us is timid or fearful of calling things by their real name; neither of us is a coward, ready to fly before danger. You love me, or think you do; and you fancy that in the sittings you ask of me the chance would surely offer to speak to me of your love. But what if I do not love you?—if I look upon your protestations and declarations as outrages, and have you expelled from the house by my servants, what will you do, what will you say, what will become of you? Do you still hold by this masterpiece, which I say is a mere pretext?"
Lise Olsdorf, speaking thus, was superb in her energy. Paul looked at her with admiration. She had never seemed more beautiful or more desirable.
"You do not answer," she went on. "So, then, I am not wrong."
"You are wrong, madame—wholly wrong. It is true that I love you madly, but my love is one of the feverish passions that have their birth in the hearts alone of artists who are adorers of the beautiful. I feel within me a medley of passions. You are not for the man who loves merely the woman desired; you are also for the painter, the model he has dreamed of—the marvel of grace and beauty that will inspire him. You are not simply the woman who says 'Love;' you are the ideal as well that says 'Glory.' If it were otherwise, should I have had the courage to follow you, should I dare to speak as I am speaking, to take your hand and tell you that with my soul, with my senses, with my imagination—I love you—I love you?"