“Oh! what have I come to do here?” she asked of her lover in low vibrating tones, with her eyes fixed on his.
“Gillette, I have left you to decide; I am ready to obey you in everything. You are my conscience and my glory. Go home again; I shall be happier, perhaps, if you do not—”
“Am I my own when you speak to me like that? No, no; I am like a child.—Come,” she added, seemingly with a violent effort; “if our love dies, if I plant a long regret in my heart, your fame will be the reward of my obedience to your wishes, will it not? Let us go in. I shall still live on as a memory on your palette; that shall be life for me afterward.”
The door opened, and the two lovers encountered Porbus, who was surprised by the beauty of Gillette, whose eyes were full of tears. He hurried her, trembling from head to foot, into the presence of the old painter.
“Here!” he cried, “is she not worth all the masterpieces in the world!”
Frenhofer trembled. There stood Gillette in the artless and childlike attitude of some timid and innocent Georgian, carried off by brigands, and confronted with a slave merchant. A shamefaced red flushed her face, her eyes drooped, her hands hung by her side, her strength seemed to have failed her, her tears protested against this outrage. Poussin cursed himself in despair that he should have brought his fair treasure from its hiding-place. The lover over, came the artist, and countless doubts assailed Poussin’s heart when he saw youth dawn in the old man’s eyes, as, like a painter, he discerned every line of the form hidden beneath the young girl’s vesture. Then the lover’s savage jealousy awoke.
“Gillette!” he cried, “let us go.”
The girl turned joyously at the cry and the tone in which it was uttered, raised her eyes to his, looked at him, and fled to his arms.
“Ah! then you love me,” she cried; “you love me!” and she burst into tears.
She had spirit enough to suffer in silence, but she had no strength to hide her joy.