Armstrong Dale walked up and down his grim-looking, soot-smudged studio,
as if he had determined to wear a track on one side similar to that made
by a wild beast in his cage.
"I won't go again," he said; "it's a kind of madness. Heavens! how
beautiful she is! And that man--that wretched, effete, miserable little
piece of conceit, with his insolent criticisms of my work. I felt as if
I could strangle him. If it had not been for her appealing looks, I
should have had a row with him before now. I will not put up with it.
But how she seems to hate him; how she--"
"Bah! Brute! Idiot! Ass! Conceited fool! Because nature has given
you a decent face, can't a handsome woman look at you without your
thinking she admires you--can't she speak gently, and in her graceful
refined way, without your thinking that she is in love with you?"
"It's all right, Cornel, my darling! I've been a fool--a conceited
fool; but I've got your sweet, innocent little face always before me,
the remembrance of your dear arms about my neck, and your kisses--
armour, all of them, to guard me against folly. Pish! Fancy and
conceit! I will go, finish my painting, get it exhibited if I can, and
pile up Philistine gold as spoil to bear home to her who is to be my
very own."
It was the third time of making this declaration, and, full of his
self-confidence, Dale made his way for the fourth time to Portland
Place, to find his pulses, which had been accelerating their rate, calm
down at once, for his reception by the Contessa was perfect, but there
was a mingling of annoyance with his satisfaction on finding that his
hostess was not alone.
Lady Grayson, one of Valentina's greatest intimates, was there, a
handsome, arch-looking woman, widow of a wealthy old general, who, after
a long life of warfare in the East, had commenced another in the West,
but this was not even of seven years' duration before he fell.
Lady Grayson smiled sweetly upon the artist as he entered; and he felt
that there was as much meaning in her words as in her looks.
"I forgot this was your sitting day, Tina. Do you know, I thought
ladies always had to go to an artist's studio to be painted. There, I
suppose you two want to be alone?"
"Pray, don't go," said Valentina calmly. "I do not suppose Mr. Dale
will mind you being present."
"I? Not at all," said Armstrong. "It will not make any difference to
me."
"Indeed!" said the lady archly, "I thought you might both want to talk."
Armstrong Dale turned to his palette and brushes; and, as the Contessa
took up her position, he crossed to the window, half-closed the
shutters, and drew a curtain, so as to get the exact light upon his
sitter, whose eyes had met those of her dearest friend, and a silent
skirmish, none the less sharp for no words being spoken, went on.
Dale returned to the front of his easel, and after a few words of
request to his sitter respecting her position, to which she responded by
a pained look, which made him shiver, he began to paint.
"Oh, how clever!" cried Lady Grayson, who had resumed her seat.
"Then she is waiting to see Cesare," thought the Contessa, smiling at
her friend.
"Did you mean that dab I just made with my brush, Lady Grayson?" said
Armstrong coldly.
"Fie! to speak so slightingly of your work. Dab, indeed! why, I have
had lessons in painting and ought to know. Every touch you give that
canvas shows real talent."
"And with all due respect, Lady Grayson, I, as a man who has studied
hard in New York, Paris, Rome, and here in London, confidently say that
you are no judge."
"I declare I am, sir," cried Lady Grayson merrily. "The fact is, you
are too modest.--Don't you think he is far too modest, dear?"
"I am debarred from entering into the discussion," said the Contessa,
with a fixed smile.
"Then I must do all the talking.--Capital! The portrait grows more like
at every touch. By the way, Mr. Dale, how is your big picture getting
on--the one I saw at your studio?"
In spite of her self-command, Valentina turned pale, and a flash darted
from her eyes.
She at his studio!
Then she drew a long breath, the light in her eyes grew fixed, and there
was a peculiar hardening in her smile, as Armstrong went on painting,
and said calmly--
"The large mythological study I showed you and the Conte?"
"Yes, that one," said Lady Grayson, who, in spite of her assurance, did
not dare to look at her friend, whose smile grew a little harder now,
though there was a feeling of triumph glowing at her heart, as she
detected her friend's slip.
"Badly," said Armstrong quietly. "I beg your pardon, Lady Dellatoria;
that smile is too hard. Are you fatigued?"
"Oh no," she replied; and the smile he was trying to transfer to the
canvas came back with a look which he avoided, and he continued
hastily--
"I cannot satisfy myself with my sitters. I want a good--a beautiful,
intense-looking--face, full of majesty, passion, and refinement; but the
models are all so hard and commonplace. I can find beautiful women to
sit, but there is a vulgarity in their faces where I want something
ethereal or spiritual."
"Why not get the Contessa to sit?"
"Or Lady Grayson?" said Valentina scornfully.
"Oh, I should sit for Mr. Dale with pleasure."
"My dear Henriette, how can you be so absurd?"
"Oh, but I do not mean until you have quite done with him, dear."
"You would not do," said Dale bluntly.--"Quite still now, please, Lady
Dellatoria."
"Alack and alas! not to be beautiful. But would your present sitter
do?"
"I should not presume to ask Lady Dellatoria to sit for a study in a
picture to be publicly exhibited," said the young man coldly.
"But you--so famous.--Ah, here is the Conte!"
"Yes; what is it?" said Dellatoria, entering. "Want me?"
"I knew it," thought the Contessa. "It was an appointment."
"Yes, to judge. That picture of Mr. Dale's. You know--the one we saw
that day at his studio."
The Conte's eyes contracted a little, and he glanced at his wife, whose
face was calm and smiling.
"Oh yes, I remember," he said--then, in an aside, "You little fool.--
What about it?" he added aloud.
"Mr. Dale can't find a model who would do for Juno. I was suggesting
that dearest Valentina should sit."
"Very good of you, Lady Grayson," said the Conte shortly; "but her
ladyship does not sit for artists."
"And Mr. Dale does not wish her ladyship to do so, sir," said the
artist, as haughtily as the Conte.
"There, I've said something wrong," cried Lady Grayson. "Poor me! It's
time I went. I had no business to stay and hinder the painting. Good
morning, Mr. Dale. Good-bye, Valentina, dear. Ask the Conte to forgive
me."
She bent down and kissed the beautiful face, which did not wince, but
there was war between two pairs of eyes. Then, turning round, she held
out her hand.
"Good-bye, dreadful man. I'm too awfully sorry I cannot give you a lift
on my way back to the park."
"No, thanks. By-the-by, yes; I want to go to Albert Gate. Would it be
taking you out of your way?"
"Oh no. Delighted. My horses don't have half enough to do."
"Then come along."
Armstrong could not help glancing at the couple as they crossed towards
the door; and then as he turned back to the canvas his heart began to
beat painfully, for he heard a peculiar hissing sound as of a long deep
breath being drawn through teeth closely set, and a dangerous feeling of
pity entered his breast. He could not paint, but stood fixed with the
brush raised, completely mastered by the flood of thought which rushed
through his brain. He saw plainly how great cause there was for the
coldness and contempt with which the Contessa viewed her husband, and he
realised fully the truth of the rumours he had heard of how she--a
beautiful English girl--had been hurried into a fashionable marriage
with this contemptible, wealthy, titled man. What else could come of it
but such a life as he saw too plainly that they led!
He fought against these thoughts, but vainly; and they only opened the
way to others still more dangerous. The first time he had met Lady
Dellatoria, when she visited his studio in company with her husband, she
had seemed attracted to him, and he had felt flattered by the eagerness
with which she listened to his words. Then came an invitation to dinner
at Portland Place, for the discussion of his undertaking the portrait.
That night, the Conte was called away to an engagement, and he was left
in that luxurious drawing-room, talking to the clever, refined, and
beautiful woman who seemed to hang upon his words.
Soon after he went back to his studio half intoxicated by her smiles;
but the next morning he had grown more himself, and had a long talk with
Joe Pacey, his greatest intimate, and been advised to paint the portrait
by all means, but to hit hard for price.
"Do you no end of good, boy; but take care of yourself; she's the most
beautiful woman in society."
Dale had laughed contemptuously, accepted the commission, and matters
had gone on till it had come to this. He had been forced to be a
witness of the breach between husband and wife, the cruelty of the
treatment she received, and he had heard that painful drawing in of the
breath, as she sat there almost within touch. She, the suffering woman,
who had from the first accorded to him what had seemed to be the warmest
friendship; and now the blood rose to his brain, and his resolutions,
his fierce accusations, appeared to have been all in vain.
He dared not look round in the terrible silence which had ensued. He
could only think that he was alone with the woman against whom his
friend had warned him, and for the moment, in the giddy sensation that
attacked him, he felt that he must rush from the room.
Then he started, and the brush fell from his hand, for there was a quick
movement in the chair on his left, and he turned sharply, to find
Valentina's eyes filled with tears, but not dimmed so that he could not
read the yearning, passionate look with which she gazed at him, as she
said in a low, thrilling whisper--
"You heard--you saw--all. Have you no pity for me--no word to say?"
For a few moments not a word.
The Contessa rose and took a step toward him, with her hands raised
appealingly.
"You do not--you cannot--understand," she half whispered, "or you would
speak to me. Can you not see how alone I am in the world, insulted,
outraged, by that man whose wife I was almost forced to become? Wife!"
she cried, "no, his slave, loaded with fetters of gold, which cut into
my flesh till my life becomes insufferable. Mr. Dale--Armstrong, I
thought you sympathised with me in my unhappy state. Have I not shown
you, since fate threw us so strangely together, that my life has been
renewed that everything has seemed changed?"
He looked at her wildly, and the palette he held fell upon the rich
thick carpet in the struggle going on within his breast.
"Are you dumb?" she whispered softly; "have you been blind to my
sufferings?"
"No, no!" he cried. "Indeed, I have not. But you must not speak like
this. It is madness. I have seen and pitied. I have felt that your
husband--"
"Husband!" she said contemptuously.
"Oh, hash!" he cried. "Lady Dellatoria, you are angry--excited. Yes, I
see and know everything, but for your own sake, don't--for Heaven's
sake, don't speak to me like this."
"Why," she said bitterly, "are you not honest and true?"
"No," he cried wildly. "It is mere folly. It has all been a terrible
mistake my coming here. I cannot--I will not continue this work. It is
impossible. The Conte insults me. He is dissatisfied. Lady
Dellatoria, I cannot submit to all his--"
He shrank from her, for her hand was laid upon his arm.
"Yes," she said, as she raised her face towards his; "he insults you, as
he insults me; he--poor, weak, pitiful creature--insults you who are so
true and manly. I am not blind. I have seen all that you try to hide.
You pity me; you have shown yourself my sympathetic friend. Yes, and I
have seen more--all that you have tried so hard to hide in your
veneration--your love for a despairing woman. Mr. Dale--Armstrong," she
whispered--and her voice was low, tender, and caressing; her eyes
seeking his with a passionate, yearning look, which thrilled him--"don't
leave me now; I could not bear it."
"Lady Dellatoria!" he panted wildly, as honour made one more stand in
his behalf.
"Valentina," she whispered, "who casts off all a woman's reserve for
you, the first who ever taught her that, after all, there is such a
thing as love in this weary world, and with it hope and joy."
The hands which had rested upon his arm rose to his shoulders, and
tightened about his neck, as she laid her burning face upon his breast.