"I saw you were being awakened very gently."
"Gently! she used me as Minerva Achilles, but I do not complain; I wanted to work: look!" He took her arm within his and led her to his easel.
"Have you done all that since I left?" she asked.
"Indeed I have, Miriam."
"That accounts for your letters being so short." He reddened; she calmly resumed--
"Why are those two figures mere outlines?"
"Thereby hangs a tale, or rather a tea-spoon. They are to be Gipsies: the child is stolen."
"And a miserable little creature it looks."
"I see I have not caught the likeness," said Cornelius, looking mortified: "it is Daisy."
"Why, so it is!" exclaimed Miss Russell, seeming astonished; "how could I recognize the child in such unbecoming attire?"
"Unbecoming! Do you know, Miriam, I rather admire Daisy in her rags: her att.i.tudes are so graceful and picturesque; and is she not wonderfully fair?" he added, taking up one of my arms and seeming to call on Miss Russell for confirmation.
"You have made quite a drudge of her," she said, looking at the picture.
"Not a degraded one, I hope," rather quickly replied Cornelius: "Marie Antoinette looked a queen, even when she swept the floor of her prison; if I have not made Daisy look superior and intellectual in her rags, the fault is mine, Miriam."
He looked at her, she did not reply; he continued--"I am taking great pains with that stolen child; as a contrast to the coa.r.s.e enjoyment of the two Gipsies, and a type of unworthy degradation borne patiently and with unconscious dignity. I mean it to be the princ.i.p.al figure of the group: you understand?"
"I should not have guessed it," was her discouraging reply. He looked mortified; she smiled, and added, "I know nothing of Art. I have nearer seen an artist at work. Let me look at you and learn."
Cornelius looked delighted, and giving her a somewhat proud smile, set to work at once. She stood by the easel in an att.i.tude of simple and attentive grace; she had taken off her black beaver bonnet, and the wintry light by which the artist painted, fell with a pale subdued ray on her fair head, and defined her perfect profile on the sombre background of the room. But his picture and his sitter absorbed Cornelius; his glance never wandered once to the spot where his beautiful mistress stood in such dangerous proximity. I saw her look at him with wonder, almost with pity, then with something like displeasure.
Cornelius was more than usually intent. From his face I knew he was obstinately striving against some difficulty. He frowned; he bit his lip; his very manner of holding palette and pencil was annoyed and irritated.
At length he threw both down with an impetuous and indignant exclamation--
"I cannot--do what I will--I cannot!" I was accustomed to such little outbreaks, but Miriam drew back, and said in a tone of ice--
"Mr. O"Reilly, you will break your palette."
"I beg your pardon," replied Cornelius, with a start that showed he had forgotten her presence, "but Daisy and the palette are used to it, and there are things would provoke Saint Luke himself, saint and painter though he was. Would you believe it? I cannot render the thoughtful look of that child"s eyes otherwise than by a stare!"
He spoke quite mournfully: Miriam laughed; her lover looked astonished.
"What about it?" she said.
"Why, that I am painting a bad picture."
"What matter?"
"And the disappointment! the shame!"
"Be more philosophic," she coolly replied: "success is but a chance."
"Begging your pardon, Miriam, it is a chance that falls to the good pictures, consequently it is worth any toil, any sacrifice."
"Yes," she replied, with reproach in the very carelessness of her tone, "you are, like all men, absorbed in your ambition."
"Would you have me sit down in idleness?"
"I would have you not set your heart on a picture and on fame."
"I must work, Miriam, and the workman cannot separate himself from his work, nor be careless of his wages."
He spoke very warmly; she coldly smiled.
"I can do so," she replied; "I can tell you: paint good or bad pictures-- what matter? you are still the same man."
"Ay, but there is a bit of difference between a good and bad painter,"
answered Cornelius, looking half vexed, "and Cornelius O"Reilly hopes to paint good pictures before he dies! But for one or two things this would not be amiss. Daisy, come and look at it."
"You appeal to her?"
"She sometimes. .h.i.ts the right nail on the head. Are the eyes better, Daisy?"
"No, Cornelius," I frankly replied.
"No!" he echoed, giving my neck a provoked pinch, "and why so, pray?"
"I don"t like them much; they look in."
"You silly child, that is just what I want," he replied, smiling and chucking my chin: "I don"t know what I should do without that little girl," he added, turning to Miriam, "she is a wonderful sitter, not a bad critic--"
"Are you not afraid she will take cold?" interrupted Miriam; "that dress looks thin."
"I trust not," answered Cornelius; "the room is kept warm; she says she is quite warm, but she is so anxious to be of use to me that I can scarcely trust her. Oh, Daisy! I hope you have not been deceiving me."
He made me lie down on the couch, drew it by the fire, threw over me a shawl that was kept in the studio for that purpose, and wrapped me in its folds. I smiled at his anxiety; Miriam looked on with surprise, as if she had forgotten that Cornelius was fond of me.
"I am so thankful to you for mentioning it," he said, turning towards her, "I am forgetful of these things; but if anything were to happen to Daisy, even for the sake of the best picture man ever painted, I should never forgive myself. How do you think she looks?"
"Sallow, as usual," she replied, in pa.s.sing by me to leave us.
"You are not going yet," he said, going up to her, "you know I want to convert you to Art."
"Not to-day," she replied coldly, and, disengaging her hand from his, she left the studio.
Cornelius came back to the fireplace and looked pensive. I attempted to rise.
"No," he said quickly, "you must not sit any more to-day."