'I do care,' he said in a low voice; and at that moment the little lady darted in, the tête-à-tête was broken, and Earle, with a sigh, resigned himself to his unpalatable task.
He painted as steadily as the volatile nature of his model permitted, though it is not an easy thing to make a picture, worthy the name, of a once pretty meaningless face that has lost the charm of youth without gaining the dignity of matronhood. But he was rewarded for his penance, for after a while Mrs De Lacy was summoned to some protégée; and then, with a delightful sense of relief, he put the unsatisfactory labour on one side, and placed instead a clean canvas on the easel.
'Now, Miss Stirling, if you will be so kind, will you take that seat and reward me for the tedious hour I have passed?'
Silvia complied with his request quietly, without any affectation.
The artist became soon deeply absorbed in trying to produce a faithful likeness of the face before him. It was not only the shape of the features, but the expression of the whole, he wished to catch—as much as it could be caught upon canvas.
'I cannot get the mouth to my mind,' said he, dreamily thinking aloud, as artists do. 'What gives it at once that expression, sweet, arch, firm?'
Silvia started up indignantly. 'Mr Earle! if I am to sit here, at least spare me that sort of remark. Do you think any woman in the world could sit still and bear to hear her face analysed?'
'Do forgive me,' he cried, really distressed. 'Indeed, I did not mean to be impertinent, but I feel I was. We get so in the habit of ignoring the personality of the faces before us, through having those stolid paid models to paint from. Please look like yourself again, and forgive me.'
'Well, so I do,' said the 'subject,' with a return of her usual frank sweetness. 'I daresay you think I ought to have got hardened; but I am only a woman, after all, you know.'
'You are indeed,' murmured the artist, as he tenderly touched the curve of the upper lip.