She obeyed and jumped off her eminence, and stood beside him looking at the picture.
'Tell me what you think,' said the painter. 'You see—it is the King's Daughter. She stands on a peak in Lyonesse and looks forth upon the waters. Why? I know not. She seeks the secrets of the future, perhaps. She looks for the coming of the Perfect Knight, perhaps. She expects the Heaven that waits for every maiden—in this world as well as in the next. Everyone may interpret the picture for himself. She is young—everything is possible to the young. Tell me, Armorel, what do you think?'
She drew a long breath. 'A—h!' she murmured. 'I have never seen anything like this before. It is not me you have painted, Roland. You say it is a picture of me—just to please and flatter me. There is my face—yet not my face. All is changed. Roland, when I am grown to my full height, shall I look like this?
'If you do, when that day comes, I shall be proved to be a painter indeed,' he replied. 'If you had seen nothing but yourself—your own self—and no more, I would have burnt the thing. Now you give me hopes.
Afterwards, Armorel loved best to remember him as he stood there beside this unfinished picture, glowing with the thought that he had done what he had attempted. The soul was there.
Out of the chatter of the studio, the endless discussions of style and method, he had come down to this simple spot, to live for three weeks, cut off from the world, with a child who knew nothing of these things. He came at a time when his enthusiasm for his work was at its fiercest: that is, when the early studies are beginning to bear fruit, when the hand has acquired command of the pencil and can control the brush, and when the eye is already trained to colour. It was at a time when the young artist refuses to look at any but the greatest work, and refuses to dream of any future except that of the greatest and noblest work. It is a splendid thing to have had, even for a short time, these dreams and these enthusiasms.
'The picture is finished,' said Armorel, 'and to-morrow you will go away and leave me.' The tears welled up in her eyes. Why should not the child cry for the departure of this sweet friend?
'My dear child,' he said, 'I cannot believe that you will stay for ever on this desert island.'
'I do not want to leave the island. I want to keep you here. Why don't you stay altogether, Roland? You can paint here. Have we made you happy? Are you satisfied with our way of living? We will change it for you, if you wish.'
'No—no—it is not that. I must go home. I must go back to my work. But I cannot bear to think of you left alone with these old people, with no companions and no friends. The time will come when you will leave the place and go away somewhere—where people live and talk——'