One day, in the early spring, Quixtus burst into the studio, a letter in hand. The greatest of all honours that the civilised world has to give to the scholar had fallen on him—honorary membership of the Institut de France. She must know of it at once.
She was sitting before the easel, a bit of charcoal in hand, absorbed in her drawing. What he saw on the drawing-paper put, for the moment, the Institute of France out of his mind. Two arms came from the vague, headless trunk of a draped woman; one arm clasped Sheila, a living portrait, and the other something all chubby, kissable curves, such as Murillo has rendered immortal. As soon as she was aware of his presence she tore the sheet from the board, and looked at him somewhat defiantly. He went up and put his arm round her, deeply moved.
“My dear,” said he, “I saw. You’re the only woman in the world that could have done it. Let me look. I can share it with you, dear.”
She yielded. His delicate perception of the innermost sweetnesses of life was infinitely dear to her. She set the drawing upright on the ledge. He drew a chair close to her and sat down, and he forgot the crowning glory of his intellectual life.
“It’s not bad of Sheila, is it?” she said.
“And the other?”
She kissed him. “The very image. It’s bound to be.”
Presently she laughed and said:
“I’ve been thinking of the good St. Paul lately. He has a lot to say about glory. Do you remember? About the glory of celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial. ‘There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars.’ But there is one glory which that eminent bachelor never dreamed of.”
“And what is that, my dear?” asked Quixtus.