“Oh! leave her with me for one moment,” said the old painter, “and you shall compare her with my Catherine ... yes—I consent.”
Frenhofer’s words likewise came from him like a lover’s cry. His vanity seemed to be engaged for his semblance of womanhood; he anticipated the triumph of the beauty of his own creation over the beauty of the living girl.
“Do not give him time to change his mind!” cried Porbus, striking Poussin on the shoulder. “The flower of love soon fades, but the flower of art is immortal.”
“Then am I only a woman now for him?” said Gillette. She was watching Poussin and Porbus closely.
She raised her head proudly; she glanced at Frenhofer, and her eyes flashed; then as she saw how her lover had fallen again to gazing at the portrait which he had taken at first for a Giorgione—
“Ah!” she cried; “let us go up to the studio. He never gave me such a look.”
The sound of her voice recalled Poussin from his dreams.
“Old man,” he said, “do you see this blade? I will plunge it into your heart at the first cry from this young girl; I will set fire to your house, and no one shall leave it alive. Do you understand?”
Nicolas Poussin scowled; every word was a menace. Gillette took comfort from the young painter’s bearing, and yet more from that gesture, and almost forgave him for sacrificing her to his art and his glorious future.
Porbus and Poussin stood at the door of the studio and looked at each other in silence. At first the painter of the Saint Mary of Egypt hazarded some exclamations: “Ah! she has taken off her clothes; he told her to come into the light—he is comparing the two!” but the sight of the deep distress in Poussin’s face suddenly silenced him; and though old painters no longer feel these scruples, so petty in the presence of art, he admired them because they were so natural and gracious in the lover. The young man kept his hand on the hilt of his dagger, and his ear was almost glued to the door. The two men standing in the shadow might have been conspirators waiting for the hour when they might strike down a tyrant.