But fame seemed to him yet afar off; to hear himself spoken of as “a young artist who was remarkably successful in likenesses”—“a young man of considerable promise,” was galling to his vanity, and he resolved to execute some work that should claim attention. While he was thinking of this, unable to fix upon any subject, he met, as we already know, Elise Revere. That face of such strange beauty, line by line his skillful pencil could copy; he could catch as he gazed upon them living before him, the spiritual brow, and the eye’s deep poetic thought—all that only a master-hand could create upon canvas. The sittings were long and many, but the artist was enchanted with his success—his ambitious dreams grew brighter, and he almost felt the laurel on his brow. Days and nights were occupied with thoughts of this new work, and the cold selfishness of his ambition cannot be better shown than by the fact, that when the illness and death of poor Elise reached his ears, the involuntary first thought was, “My picture was in time!”
And this was the being—his selfish nature unrevealed in his good-natured face and cordial manner, who sought to win the young, child-like heart of Emily. Few could have resisted the fascination of his presence—the mien deferential, tender—so eloquent of admiration, and finally of love. Emily did not at least; she thought him good, noble and gifted, and then he was so handsome, and beauty is a powerful pleader to the heart of seventeen. She soon learned to love the books and music he had praised, to look for his smile amid the crowd, and be sad if she met it not—to treasure the flowers he had given and the words he had whispered over them, and at last to be pensive or gay, happy or sorrowful, in harmony with the music of those sweet chimes that usher in the morning of a first love.
The sittings for Emily’s portrait had been a happy period to both the artist and his beautiful subject—hours of pleasant interchange of thought and feeling, memorable steps in the rosy pathway they were now treading—and this day in especial had been so delightful, with its thousand nothings of conversation, to which time and circumstance give such a value, that an unconcealed shadow of regret fell upon each face, as Miss Hastings’ servant announced that the carriage waited.
“I believe,” said Emily, as she tied the little white chip hat under her dainty chin, “that you told papa yesterday there would be but one more sitting before the picture was finished.”
“Only one more,” replied Edgar, in a tone which sent a richer bloom into Emily’s cheek, and as fearful of betrayal she turned away her head, her wandering eyes fell upon the portrait of Elise Revere, from which the carelessly fastened covering had fallen.
“Oh, how beautiful, how adorably beautiful!” she exclaimed, pressing eagerly forward, “and is it yours, Edgar?”
He looked into her glowing face, and his heart swelled proudly as he answered:
“Yes, I have just finished it for the coming exhibition; it has occupied me for some time, and no one has yet seen it, but I intended showing it to you; do you like it?”
“Like it? I could look forever into those wonderful eyes, and upon that calm, noble forehead. Is it a portrait?”
“No!” came from the artist’s false lips, “it is an ideal work.”