Claymore was intensely imaginative, and he possessed all the sanguine
disposition of the artistic temperament, the power of giving himself up
to a dream so that it for the time being became real. Matters which the
reason will without hesitation allow to be the lightest bubbles of fancy
are to such a disposition almost as veracious fact; and often the life
of an imaginative man is shaped by what to cold judgment is an untenable
hypothesis. The artist had not in the least been conscious how strong a
hold the idea of awakening Ralph Thatcher had taken upon his mind, until
the doubt presented itself whether the portrait had in reality possessed
any influence whatever. He was not without a sense of humor, and he
smiled inwardly at the seriousness with which he regarded the matter. He
reasoned with himself, half petulantly, half humorously; sometimes
taking the ground that his theory had been merely a fantastic absurdity,
and again holding doggedly to the belief that it was founded upon some
fragment at least of vital truth. He recalled vaguely a good many scraps
of modern beliefs in the power of suggestion; then he came back to the
reflection that if Ralph was in love, no suggestion was needed to cause
a mental revolution.
Wholly to disbelieve in its own inspirations is, however, hardly
within the power of the genuinely imaginative nature. Whatever his
understanding might argue, Tom, in the end, would have been false to his
temperament had he not remained convinced that he was right in believing
that to some degree, at least, the picture he was painting had
influenced his sitter. Without any consciously defined plan, he got out
a fresh canvas, and occupied himself, when alone in the studio, by
copying Ralph's head, but with a difference. As in the other picture he
had endeavored to express all the noblest possibilities of the young
man's face, in this he labored to portray whatever potentiality of evil
might be found there. Every introspective person has experienced the
sensation of feeling that a course of action is being followed as if by
some inner direction, yet without any clear consciousness of the reason;
and much as might have come a hint of the intentions or motives of
another person, came to Tom the thought that he was painting this second
portrait that its difference from the first might show him upon what
foundations rested his fanciful theory. He wished, he told himself, at
least to see how far he had expressed a personality unlike another
equally possible.
As a faint shade on the artist's inner consciousness rested, however, a
feeling that this explanation was not completely satisfactory. He would
have been shocked had he even dreamed of the possibility that artistic
vanity, aroused by the doubt that it possessed the power of moulding
the life and destiny of Ralph, had defiantly turned to throw its
influence into the other scale, to prove by its power of dragging the
sitter down that its dominance was real. Had any realization of such a
motive come to Claymore, he would have been horrified at a thought so
evil; yet he failed to push self-investigation far enough to bring him
to an understanding of his real motives.
The painter worked steadily and with almost feverish rapidity, and
before the end of the week he was able to substitute the second portrait
for the first when Ralph, who had been out of town for a few days, came
for his next sitting. Tom was not without a good deal of uneasy secret
curiosity in regard to the effect upon Thatcher of the changed picture.
He appreciated how great the alteration really was, a difference so
marked that he had lacked the courage to carry out his first intention
of exhibiting the new canvas to Celia. He excused himself for hesitating
to show her the portrait by the whimsical pretext that it would not be
the part of a gentleman to betray the discreditable traits of character
he believed himself to have discovered as among the possibilities of her
cousin's nature. What Ralph would himself say, the painter awaited with
uneasy eagerness, and as the latter, after the customary greetings,
walked up to the easel and stood regarding his counterfeit presentment,
Tom found himself more nervous than he would have supposed possible.
Ralph studied the picture a moment in silence.
"What in the devil," he burst out, "have you been doing to my picture?"
"What is the matter with it?" the artist asked, stepping beside him, and
in turn fixing his gaze on the portrait.
"I'm sure I don't know," Ralph replied, with a puzzled air; "but somehow
or other it seems to me to have changed from a rather decent-looking
phiz into a most accursedly low-lived one. Do I look like that?"
"I suppose a mirror would give a more disinterested answer to that
question than I could."
Claymore glanced up as he spoke, and hardly repressed an exclamation of
surprise. Ralph's whole expression was changing to correspond with that
of the portrait before him. Who has not, in looking at some portrait
which strongly impressed him, found in a little time that his own
countenance was unconsciously altering its expression to correspond with
that portrayed before him; and the chances that such a thing will occur
must be doubly great when the picture is one's own image.
A portrait appeals so intimately to the personality of the person
represented, human vanity and individuality insist so strongly upon
regarding it as a part of self, that it stands in a closer relation to
the inner being than can almost any other outward thing. It is, in a
sense, part of the original, and perhaps the oriental prejudice against
being portrayed, lest in the process the artist may obtain some sinister
advantage, is founded upon some subtle truth. It can hardly be possible
that, with the keen feeling every man must have in regard to his
portrait, any one should fail to be more or less influenced by the
painter's conception of him, the visible embodiment of the impression he
has made upon another human mind; and since every picture must contain
something of the personality of the artist, it follows that a
portrait-painter is sure to affect in some degree the character of his
sitters. It would rarely happen that this influence would be either
intentional or tangible, but must it not always exist?
Claymore stood for a little time watching Ralph's face; then he walked
away, and returned with a small mirror which he put in the latter's
hand. Thatcher looked at the reflection it offered him, and broke into
a hard laugh.
"By George!" he said; "it does look like me. I never realized before
that I was such a whelp."
"Fiddlesticks!" Claymore rejoined briskly, taking the glass from him.
"Don't talk nonsense. Take your place and let's get to work."