Dale's hands trembled, and there were feverish marks in his cheeks as he
dressed next morning, and then walked into his sitting-room and rang.
The breakfast things were laid, and in a few minutes Keren-Happuch came
through the studio with his coffee and toast, while an hour later,
without daring to speak to him, she bore the almost untouched breakfast
away.
As soon as he was alone, he made an effort to master himself, and walked
firmly into the studio, drew forward his easel, and after removing the
curtain, stood there to study his work and criticise and mark its
failings.
He found none to mark, but stood there waiting for its living, breathing
model, knowing well enough that he must check the madness attacking
him--at once, in its incipient stage.
"I'm as weak a fool as other men," he muttered. "Bah! I can easily
disillusionise myself. I'll insist upon her removing her veil to-day.
It is that and the foolish wish to see her face that has upset me, I
being in a weak, nervous state. Once I've finished and had the work
framed, I really will give up painting for a few weeks and rest."
That maddening day passed, but no model came, and as soon as it was dark
he went out, but not until the last post had come in that was likely to
bring him a letter of excuse from his sitter.
He went straight to the street where Jaggs lodged, to learn that he was
away from home. The people of the house thought that he had gone down
somewhere in the country to sit for an artist who was doing a
sea-picture, but they were not sure whether it was Surrey or Cornwall.
Somewhere Leather Lane way, Jaggs had told him that the father lived.
Perhaps he was ill, and his child was nursing him. But how could he go
about asking at random in that neighbourhood about the missing model?
But he did, seeking out first one and then another handsome picturesque
vagabond belonging to the artistic Italian colony, and questioning them,
but without avail. They had never heard the name.
He tried a lodging-house or two, upon whose steps Italian women were
seated, dark-eyed, black-haired, and with showy glass bead necklaces
about their throats. But no; those who could understand him neither
knew the name, nor had they heard of a Sardinian patriot whose daughter
went out to sit.
Dale returned to his rooms to pass another sleepless night, hoping that
the next morning would put an end to his anxiety, fever, or excitement,
whichever it was--for he savagely refrained from confessing to himself
that he grasped what his trouble might be.
But the morning came, and seven more mornings, to find him seated before
his unfinished picture, practising a kind of self-deceit, and telling
himself that he was feverish, haggard, and mentally careworn on account
of his dread of not being able to finish his picture as satisfactorily
as he could wish.
He had tried hard during the interval, but, in spite of all his efforts,
he had been able to get tidings of neither Jaggs nor the model the man
had introduced; while to make his state the more wretched, Pacey had not
been near him, and for some unaccountable reason Leronde, too, had
stayed away.
He was seated, wild-eyed and despairing, one morning, when Keren-Happuch
came running in, breathless with her exertions to reach the studio, and
bear the news which she felt would be like life to the young artist.
"Here she is, sir!" panted the girl, "she's come at last;" and then ran
down to open the front door.
Dale staggered and turned giddy, but listened with eyes fixed upon the
door, hardly daring to believe till he saw it open, and the dark,
closely veiled figure enter quickly.
Then there was a reaction, and he asked himself why he had suffered like
this. What was the poorly dressed woman who had just entered to him?
His lips parted, but he did not speak, only waited.
"Am I too late?" she said, in her strongly accented French. "Some
other? The picture finished?"
"No," he said coldly; and he wondered at her collected manner as he
caught the glint of a pair of searching eyes. "I have waited for you.
Why have you been so long?"
"I have been ill," she said simply, and her tones suggested suffering.
"Ill?" he cried excitedly; and he took a step towards her with
outstretched hand. "I am very sorry."
"Thank you," she said quietly, and ignoring the extended hand. "I am
once more well, and I must be quick. Shall I stay one more hour every
day and you pay me more? Oh, no. For the same!"
"Yes, pray do," he said huskily, and he thrust his hand into his pocket
to pay her in advance according to his custom, but she ignored the money
as she had previously passed his hand without notice, and after pointing
to the door, she hurried through into his room, to return in a
wonderfully short space of time and take her place upon the dais.
Dale began to paint eagerly, feverishly, so as to lose himself in his
work, but in a few minutes he raised his eyes to see the glint of those
which seemed to be watching him suspiciously through the thick veil, as
if ready to take alarm at the slightest word or gesture on his part, and
at once the power to continue his work was gone. He felt that he must
speak, and in a deep husky voice he began--
"You have been very ill, then?"
"Yes, monsieur," curtly and distantly.
"I wondered very much at not seeing you. I was alarmed."
"I do not see why monsieur should feel alarm."
"Of course, on account of my picture," he said awkwardly. Then laying
down his palette and brushes, he saw that the model gave a sudden start,
but once more stood motionless as he took out his pocket-book, and
withdrew the pencil.
"Will you give me your address?"
"Why should monsieur wish for my address?"
"To communicate with you. If I had known, I should have been spared
much anxiety. Tell me, and I will write it down."
"With that of the women who wait monsieur's orders? No!"
This was spoken so imperiously that Dale replaced the pencil and book,
and took up palette and brushes.
"As you will," he said, and he began to paint once more.
But the power to convey all he wished to the canvas had gone, and he
turned to her again.
"Tell me more about yourself," he said. "You are a foreigner, and
friendless here in England: I know that, but tell me more. I may be of
service to you."
"Monsieur is being of service to me. He pays me for occupying this
degrading position to which I am driven."
There was so much angry bitterness in her tones that Dale was again
silenced; but his pulse beat high, and as he applied his brush to his
canvas from time to time, there were only results that he would have to
wipe away.
"I am sorry you consider the task degrading," he said at last. "I have
endeavoured to make it as little irksome as I could."
"Monsieur has been most kind till now," she said quickly; and then, in a
bitterly contemptuous tone, "monsieur forgets that I am waiting. His
pencil is idle."
He started angrily, and went on painting, but the eyes were still
watching him, and, strive all he would, there was the intense desire
growing once more to see that face which was hidden from him so closely.
He knew that he ought to respect his visitor's scruples, but he could
not, and again and again he shivered with a sensation nearly approaching
to dread. But the wish was still supreme. That black woollen veil
piqued him, and after a few minutes of worthless work, he asked her if
she was weary.
"Yes," she replied.
"Then we will rest a few minutes."
"No, monsieur; go on. I am your slave for the time."
He started at her words, and as much at her tone, which was as full of
hauteur as if she were some princess. But now, instead of this driving
him in very shame to continue his work, it only impressed him the more.
There was a mystery about her and her ways. The almost insolent
contempt with which she treated him made him angry, and his anger
increased to rage as he fully realised how weak and mortal he was as
man. He tried not to own it to himself, but he knew that a strange
passion had developed itself within him, and with mingled pleasure and
pain he felt that this beautiful woman could read him through and
through, and that hour by hour her feelings toward him became more and
more those of contempt.
He did not stop to reason, for he was rapidly becoming blind to
everything but his unconquerable desire to see her face. There were
moments when he felt ready to rage against himself for his weakness and,
as he called it, folly; but all this was swept away, and at last, as the
sitting went on and the model haughtily refused to leave the dais for a
time to rest, he found himself asking whether there was not after all
truth in the old legends, and whether, enraged by his shrinking from
Lady Dellatoria's passionate avowals, the author of all evil had not
sent some beautiful demon to tempt him and show him how weak he was
after all. It was maddening, and at last he threw down palette and
brushes to begin striding up and down the room, carefully averting his
eyes from his model, who stood there as motionless as if she were some
lovely statue.
At last he returned to his canvas.
"You must be tired now," he said hurriedly. "Rest for a while."
"I'm not tired now," she replied coldly, "if monsieur will continue."
"I cannot paint to-day," he said hoarsely. "You trouble me. What I
have done is valueless."
"I trouble monsieur?" she said coldly. "Am I not patient?--can I be
more still?"
He made a mighty effort over self, and for the moment conquered.
Seizing his brushes and palette, he began to paint once more, but in a
reckless way, as if merely to keep himself occupied, but as he turned
his eyes from his canvas from time to time to study the beautiful model,
standing there in that imperious attitude, strange, mysterious, and
weird, with the black enmasking above the graceful voluptuous figure, he
lost more and more the self-command he had maintained.
For a few minutes he told himself that he was mistaken, that her eyes
must be closed; but it was, he knew too well, a mere mental subterfuge:
they were gleaming through that black network, and piercing him to the
very soul.
He could bear it no longer, and again throwing down brushes and palette,
he paced the room for a minute or two before turning to the marble
figure standing so motionless before him.
"I tell you I cannot paint," he cried angrily. "It is as if you were
casting some spell over me. I must see your face. Why do you persist
in this fancy? Your masked countenance takes off my attention. I beg--
I insist--remove that veil."
"I do not quite understand monsieur," she said coldly. "He speaks in a
language that is not mine, neither is it his. He confuses me. I am
trying to be a patient model, but everything is wrong to-day. Will he
tell me what I should do to give him satisfaction?"
"Take off that veil!" cried Dale.
The model caught up the cloak and flung it around her shoulders.
"Now, quick!" cried Dale excitedly, "that veil!"
"Monsieur is ill. Shall I call for help?"
"No, no, I am not ill. Once more I beg, I pray of you--take off that
veil."
"But monsieur is so strange--so unlike himself," she cried, as, taking
another step forward, Dale caught the hand which held the cloak in his.
"Now!" he cried wildly, with his eyes flashing, and trying to pierce the
woollen mask--"that veil!" For a moment the warm soft hand clung to his
convulsively, and the other rose with the arm in a graceful movement
towards the shrouded face; but, as if angry with herself for being about
to yield to his mad importunity, she snatched away the hand he held, and
with the other thrust him back violently.
"It is infamous!" she cried, with her eyes flashing through the veil.
"It is an insult. Monsieur, it is to the woman you love that you should
speak those words;" and, with an imperious gesture, she stepped down
from the dais as if it had been her throne, and with her face turned
toward Dale, she walked with calm dignity, her head thrown back, and the
folds of the cloak gathered round her, to the inner door, passed
through, and for the first time, when it was closed, he heard the lock
give a sharp snap as it was shot into the socket Dale stood motionless
in the middle of the studio, his eyes bloodshot and his pulses throbbing
heavily, unable for some little time either to think or move.
"Yes," he muttered, as he grew calmer; "it was an insult, and she
revenges herself upon me. An hour ago I was to her a chivalrous man in
whose honour she could have faith. Now I am degraded in her eyes to the
level of the brute, and--she trusts me no longer. Do I love this woman
whose face I have never seen, or am I going mad?"
But he was alone now, and he grew more calm as the minutes glided by;
and once more making a tremendous effort to command himself, he waited
as patiently as he could for the opening of the door.
In a few minutes there was the sharp snap again of the lock being
turned, the door was thrown open, and the tall dark figure swept out
into the great studio with head erect and indignant mien.
She had to pass close by him to reach the farther door, but she looked
straight before her, completely ignoring his presence till in excited
tones he said--"One moment--pray stop."
She had passed him, but she arrested her steps and half turned her head
as a queen might, to listen to some suppliant who was about to offer his
petition.
"Forgive me," he panted. "I was not myself. You will forget all this.
Do not let my madness drive you away."
He was standing with his hands extended as if to seize her again, but
she gathered her cloak tightly round her, so that he could see once more
the curves and contour of the form he had transferred to canvas, as she
passed on to the door, where she stopped and waited for him, according
to his custom, to turn the key.
Her mute action and gesture dragged him to the door as if he were
completely under her influence; and, throwing it open, he once more said
pleadingly, and in a low deep voice which trembled from the emotion by
which he was overcome--
"Forgive me: I was half mad."
But she made no sign. Walking swiftly now, she passed out on to the
landing, descended the staircase, and as he stood listening, he heard
the light step and the rustling of her garments, till she reached the
heavy front door, which was opened and closed with a heavy, dull,
echoing sound.
But still Dale did not move. He stood as if bound there by the spell of
which he had spoken, till all at once he uttered a faint cry, snatched
his hat, and followed her out into the street.
Too late. There was no sign of the black cloaked figure, and, after
hurrying in different directions for several minutes, he returned to his
studio utterly crushed.
"Gone!" he muttered, as he threw himself into a chair. "I shall never
see her more. Great heavens! Do I love this woman? Am I so vile?"
"Please, sir, may I come in?"
Dale started up and tried to look composed, as little Keren-Happuch
entered with a note in her hand.
"One o' them scented ones, sir," said the girl. "It was in the
letter-box. I found it two hours ago, but I did not like to bring it
in."
As soon as Dale was alone, his eyes fell upon the Contessa's well-known
hand, and, without opening the letter, he gazed at it, and recalled the
past.