Mr. Lovell was standing with his back to the door. The inquiry, therefore, was addressed to him from behind. The voice in which it was uttered was feminine, and the accent foreign. The artist turned--and stared. For there, peeping through the partly open door, was the woman of his dream! There could not be the slightest doubt about it. Although the head was covered with the latest thing in Parisian hats, there was no mistaking, when one once had seen it--as he had seen it--that lovely face, those laughing eyes. He stared--and gaped. The lady seemed to take his silence to imply consent. She advanced into the room.
"You are Mr. Gerald Lovell?"
As she came into the room, he perceived that she was not only most divinely fair, but most divinely tall. Her figure, clad in the most recent coquetries of Paris, was the most exquisite thing in figures he had lately seen. So completely had she taken his faculties of astonishment by storm, that he could only stammer a response.
"You are the painter of my portrait?" For the life of him, he knew not what to say. "But, if you are Mr. Gerald Lovell, it is certain that you are. Besides, I see it in your face. There is genius in your eyes. Mr. Lovell, how am I to thank you for the honour you have done me?" Moving to him, she held out to him her hand. He gave her his. She retained it--or, rather, part of it--in her small palm. "If I am ever destined to attain to immortality, it is to your brush it will be owing. Monsieur, permit me to salute the master!"
Before he had an inkling of her intention, she raised his hand and touched it with her lips. He withdrew it quickly.
"Madame!"
She exhibited no signs of discomposure.
"I was at your Academy, with a friend--not half an hour ago. I beheld miles of mediocrity. Suddenly I saw--my face! my own face! glancing at me from the walls! Ah, quel plaisir! But my face--how many times more lovely! How many times more beautiful! My face--depicted by the hand of a great artist! by the brush of a poet, and a genius!--Monsieur, you have placed on me ten thousand obligations."
She gave him the most sweeping curtsey with which he ever had been favoured--and in her eyes was laughter all the time. He was recovering his presence of mind. He felt that it was time to put a stop to the lady's flow of flowery language. He was about to do so--when a question she put to him again sent half his senses flying.
"There is one thing which I wished to ask you, Monsieur. When and where did I sit to you for my portrait? I do not remember to have had the pleasure and the honour of meeting you before." The lady's laughing eyes were fixed intently on his face. "And yet, as I look at you, a sort of shadowy recollection comes to me of a previous encounter; it is very strange! Monsieur, where was it we encountered--you and I?"