When the portrait was sufficiently advanced, M. de Nailles came to the studio to judge of the likeness. He was delighted: "Only, my friend, I think," he cried to Marien, endeavoring to soften his one objection to the picture, "that you have given her a look--how can I put it?--an expression very charming no doubt, but which is not that of a child of her age. You know what I mean. It is something tender--intense--profound, too feminine. It may come to her some day, perhaps--but hitherto Jacqueline"s expression has been generally that of a merry, mischievous child."
"Oh, papa!" cried the young girl, stung by the insult.
"You may possibly be right," Marien hastened to reply, "it was probably the fatigue of posing that gave her that expression."
"Oh!" repeated Jacqueline, more shocked than ever.
"I can alter it," said the painter, much amused by her extreme despair.
But Marien thought that Jacqueline had not in the least that precocious air which her father attributed to her, when standing before him she gave herself up to thoughts the current of which he followed easily, watching on her candid face its changes of expression. How could he have painted her other than she appeared to him? Was what he saw an apparition--or was it a work of magic?
Several times during the sittings M. de Nailles made his appearance in the studio, and after greatly praising the work, persisted in his objection that it made Jacqueline too old. But since the painter saw her thus they must accept his judgment. It was no doubt an effect of the grown-up costume that she had had a fancy to put on.
"After all," he said to Jacqueline, "it is of not much consequence; you will grow up to it some of these days. And I pay you my compliments in advance on your appearance in the future."
She felt like choking with rage. "Oh! is it right," she thought, "for parents to persist in keeping a young girl forever in her cradle, so to speak?"
CHAPTER IV. A DANGEROUS MODEL
Time pa.s.sed too quickly to please Jacqueline. Her portrait was finished at last, notwithstanding the willingness Marien had shown--or so it seemed to her--to retouch it unnecessarily that she might again and again come back to his atelier. But it was done at last. She glided into that dear atelier for the last time, her heart big with regret, with no hope that she would ever again put on the fairy robe which had, she thought, transfigured her till she was no longer little Jacqueline.
"I want you only for one moment, and I need only your face," said Marien. "I want to change--a line--I hardly know what to call it, at the corner of your mouth. Your father is right; your mouth is too grave.
Think of something amusing--of the Bal Blanc at Madame d"Etaples, or merely, if you like, of the satisfaction it will give you to be done with these everlasting sittings--to be no longer obliged to bear the burden of a secret, in short to get rid of your portrait-painter."
She made him no answer, not daring to trust her voice.
"Come! now, on the contrary you are tightening your lips," said Marien, continuing to play with her as a cat plays with a mouse--provided there ever was a cat who, while playing with its mouse, had no intention of crunching it. "You are not merry, you are sad. That is not at all becoming to you."
"Why do you attribute to me your own thoughts? It is you who will be glad to get rid of all this trouble."
Fraulein Schult, who, while patiently adding st.i.tch after st.i.tch to the long strip of her crochet-work, was often much amused by the dialogues between sitter and painter, p.r.i.c.ked up her ears to hear what a Frenchman would say to what was evidently intended to provoke a compliment.
"On the contrary, I shall miss you very much," said Marien, quite simply; "I have grown accustomed to see you here. You have become one of the familiar objects of my studio. Your absence will create a void."
"About as much as if this or that were gone," said Jacqueline, in a hurt tone, pointing first to a j.a.panese bronze and then to an Etruscan vase; "with only this difference, that you care least for the living object."
"You are bitter, Mademoiselle."
"Because you make me such provoking answers, Monsieur. My feeling is different," she went on impetuously, "I could pa.s.s my whole life watching you paint."
"You would get tired of it probably in the long run."
"Never!" she cried, blushing a deep red.
"And you would have to put up with my pipe--that big pipe yonder--a horror."
"I should like it," she cried, with conviction.
"But you would not like my bad temper. If you knew how ill I can behave sometimes! I can scold, I can become unbearable, when this, for example," here he pointed with his mahlstick to the Savonarola, "does not please me."
"But it is beautiful--so beautiful!"
"It is detestable. I shall have to go back some day and renew my impressions of Florence--see once more the Piazze of the Signora and San Marco--and then I shall begin my picture all over again. Let us go together--will you?"
"Oh!" she cried, fervently, "think of seeing Italy!--and with you!"
"It might not be so great a pleasure as you think. Nothing is such a bore as to travel with people who are pervaded by one idea, and my "idee fixe" is my picture--my great Dominican. He has taken complete possession of me--he overshadows me. I can think of nothing but him."
"Oh! but you think of me sometimes, I suppose," said Jacqueline, softly, "for I share your time with him."
"I think of you to blame you for taking me away from the fifteenth century," replied Hubert Marien, half seriously. "Ouf!--There! it is done at last. That dimple I never could manage I have got in for better or for worse. Now you may fly off. I set you at liberty--you poor little thing!"
She seemed in no hurry to profit by his permission. She stood perfectly still in the middle of the studio.
"Do you think I have posed well, faithfully, and with docility all these weeks?" she asked at last.
"I will give you a certificate to that effect, if you like. No one could have done better."
"And if the certificate is not all I want, will you give me some other present?"
"A beautiful portrait--what can you want more?"
"The picture is for mamma. I ask a favor on my own account."
"I refuse it beforehand. But you can tell me what it is, all the same."
"Well, then--the only part of your house that I have ever been in is this atelier. You can imagine I have a curiosity to see the rest."
"I see! you threaten me with a domiciliary visit without warning. Well!
certainly, if that would give you any amus.e.m.e.nt. But my house contains nothing wonderful. I tell you that beforehand."
"One likes to know how one"s friends look at home--in their own setting, and I have only seen you here at work in your atelier."
"The best point of view, believe me. But I am ready to do your bidding.
Do you wish to see where I eat my dinner?" asked Marien, as he took her down the staircase leading to his dining-room.
Fraulein Schult would have liked to go with them--it was, besides, her duty. But she had not been asked to fulfil it. She hesitated a moment, and in that moment Jacqueline had disappeared. After consideration, the "promeneuse" went on with her crochet, with a shrug of her shoulders which meant: "She can"t come to much harm."
Seated in the studio, she heard the sound of their voices on the floor below. Jacqueline was lingering in the fencing-room where Marien was in the habit of counteracting by athletic exercises the effects of a too sedentary life. She was amusing herself by fingering the dumb-bells and the foils; she lingered long before some precious suits of armor. Then she was taken up into a small room, communicating with the atelier, where there was a fine collection of drawings by the old masters. "My only luxury," said Marien.
Mademoiselle Schult, getting impatient, began to roll up yards and yards of crochet, and coughed, by way of a signal, but remembering how disagreeable it would have been to herself to be interrupted in a tete-a-tete with her apothecary, she thought it not worth while to disturb them in these last moments. M. de Nailles"s orders had been that she was to sit in the atelier. So she continued to sit there, doing what she had been told to do without any qualms of conscience.
When Marien had shown Jacqueline all his drawings he asked her: "Are you satisfied?"
But Jacqueline"s hand was already on the portiere which separated the little room from Marien"s bedchamber.