Besides, I cannot believe it. I never look at your face, but I seem to see the word "Genius" written there."
And, as I spoke, I laid my lips on a brow where eyes less prejudiced than mine might have read the same story. A sudden and burning glow overspread the features of Cornelius; he looked another way, and bit his lips, as if seeking for calmness, as striving to curb down that impatient fever of the blood which, in good or in evil, it is always a sort of pain to betray. I half drew back, thinking him vexed again, but he detained me; and turning towards me a flushed and troubled face, he said with a forced laugh:
"Your head has been turned by reading those Lives of the Painters, and you want to turn mine too. To satisfy you, I should be the first painter in England."
"In England!" I echoed; "in Christendom, Sir."
"Rather high-flown, Daisy. Besides that it sounds like a reminiscence of the seven champions."
"High-flown! Ambition is a bird of high feather, Cornelius. I would scorn to aim at the second place when there is the first to win."
"Oh! you witch!" he said again, "how well you know me!"
"What has become of the evil spirit that possessed you?" I asked, smiling.
"Gone to the winds for the present," he answered gaily.
"Well then work."
"Not yet. Let us rest awhile."
He sat down on a low couch by the open window, and made me sit down by him. Since his return, I had not seen his face wear so free and happy a look, as it then wore. His brilliant and deep-set hazel eyes shone beneath the dark arch of the brow, with unusual light, and rested on me with a triumphant tenderness that perplexed me; a warmer glow tinged his cheek, embrowned by a southern sun. There lurked both joy and exultation in the half smile that trembled on his lips: like his sister, he had a very beautiful and fascinating smile; and, as I now gazed at him. I could not help smiling, too, for I thought I had never seen him look half so handsome. In the freak of the moment, I told him so.
"Do you know, Mr. O"Reilly?" I said, taking hold of his curved chin, and looking up at him laughing. "Do you know that you are very good-looking?"
He half threw back his head, as if in scorn of the compliment; but when I added, "I suppose all great artists are so!" he smiled down at me; and if his smile was somewhat conscious, it was still more fond and tender.
"You like me, Daisy; don"t you?" he said, bending over me a flushed and happy face.
I laughed, and he laughed, too, with the security of the knowledge.
"Oh! you may laugh," he said with sparkling eyes; "I know you do. I know it, but I have not deserved it," he added, remorsefully. "Oh! when I think how cold, and how careless I have been; and how you might serve me out now!"
"How so, Cornelius?"
He smiled, and smoothed my hair without replying.
"Why it is you who might serve me out," I said.
"Is it?"
"Of course, for it is I who have all to gain or lose."
"Are you afraid?"
"No."
He repressed a smile, gave me a curious look, and said I was an odd girl.
"And won"t the other girls be jealous of me, Cornelius?" I asked, proudly.
"Jealous! What for?"
"Because you are immortalizing me in a picture."
"What else?"
"Because you like me."
"What else?"
"Because I am to be always with you."
"And how do you know you are to be always with me?" he asked with a mischievous look; "answer me that."
I did not at first; he laughed.
"Well," I said, piqued, "am I not to be always with you? Was it not agreed before you went to Italy? Am I not to be the governess?"
"The governess!" he echoed, astonished.
It was some time before I could make him remember what had pa.s.sed between us. If I had not been positive, he would have denied it altogether.
"How can you think of such nonsense?" he asked, impatiently; "the governess of what?"
"Of the children; and please not to call them _what_."
"_Them!_ Will you be pleased to remember that I am a poor artist."
"Sceptic! Providence will send for every child a new picture to paint."
"Providence is very kind. I hope her liberality will know some limits."
"The first must be Cornelius or Kate, second ditto, third--"
"Daisy!"
"There must be a third to be called after the mother, and the fourth after one of her friends; the fifth--"
"Daisy!" indignantly asked Cornelius: "do you mean to make a patriarch of me?"
"Patriarch or not, there must be a fifth--mine, whom you will call Daisy, in memory of the other Daisy you brought home, wrapped in your cloak."
Cornelius turned round to look at me smiling:
"So you were piqued," he said, "and brought up the governess to punish me!"
"Piqued!" I echoed, laughing in his face, "what about?"