"I think you are paying me a compliment," said the old man.
"Surely, I am not the first woman that ever did so!" cried the Baroness.
"I think you are," said Mr. Wentworth gravely. And turning to Felix he added, in the same tone, "Please don"t take my likeness. My children have my daguerreotype. That is quite satisfactory."
"I won"t promise," said Felix, "not to work your head into something!"
Mr. Wentworth looked at him and then at all the others; then he got up and slowly walked away.
"Felix," said Gertrude, in the silence that followed, "I wish you would paint my portrait."
Charlotte wondered whether Gertrude was right in wishing this; and she looked at Mr. Brand as the most legitimate way of ascertaining. Whatever Gertrude did or said, Charlotte always looked at Mr. Brand. It was a standing pretext for looking at Mr. Brand--always, as Charlotte thought, in the interest of Gertrude"s welfare. It is true that she felt a tremulous interest in Gertrude being right; for Charlotte, in her small, still way, was an heroic sister.
"We should be glad to have your portrait, Miss Gertrude," said Mr.
Brand.
"I should be delighted to paint so charming a model," Felix declared.
"Do you think you are so lovely, my dear?" asked Lizzie Acton, with her little inoffensive pertness, biting off a knot in her knitting.
"It is not because I think I am beautiful," said Gertrude, looking all round. "I don"t think I am beautiful, at all." She spoke with a sort of conscious deliberateness; and it seemed very strange to Charlotte to hear her discussing this question so publicly. "It is because I think it would be amusing to sit and be painted. I have always thought that."
"I am sorry you have not had better things to think about, my daughter,"
said Mr. Wentworth.
"You are very beautiful, cousin Gertrude," Felix declared.
"That "s a compliment," said Gertrude. "I put all the compliments I receive into a little money-jug that has a slit in the side. I shake them up and down, and they rattle. There are not many yet--only two or three."
"No, it "s not a compliment," Felix rejoined. "See; I am careful not to give it the form of a compliment. I did n"t think you were beautiful at first. But you have come to seem so little by little."
"Take care, now, your jug does n"t burst!" exclaimed Lizzie.
"I think sitting for one"s portrait is only one of the various forms of idleness," said Mr. Wentworth. "Their name is legion."
"My dear sir," cried Felix, "you can"t be said to be idle when you are making a man work so!"
"One might be painted while one is asleep," suggested Mr. Brand, as a contribution to the discussion.
"Ah, do paint me while I am asleep," said Gertrude to Felix, smiling.
And she closed her eyes a little. It had by this time become a matter of almost exciting anxiety to Charlotte what Gertrude would say or would do next.
She began to sit for her portrait on the following day--in the open air, on the north side of the piazza. "I wish you would tell me what you think of us--how we seem to you," she said to Felix, as he sat before his easel.
"You seem to me the best people in the world," said Felix.
"You say that," Gertrude resumed, "because it saves you the trouble of saying anything else."
The young man glanced at her over the top of his canvas. "What else should I say? It would certainly be a great deal of trouble to say anything different."
"Well," said Gertrude, "you have seen people before that you have liked, have you not?"
"Indeed I have, thank Heaven!"
"And they have been very different from us," Gertrude went on.
"That only proves," said Felix, "that there are a thousand different ways of being good company."
"Do you think us good company?" asked Gertrude.
"Company for a king!"
Gertrude was silent a moment; and then, "There must be a thousand different ways of being dreary," she said; "and sometimes I think we make use of them all."
Felix stood up quickly, holding up his hand. "If you could only keep that look on your face for half an hour--while I catch it!" he said. "It is uncommonly handsome."
"To look handsome for half an hour--that is a great deal to ask of me,"
she answered.
"It would be the portrait of a young woman who has taken some vow, some pledge, that she repents of," said Felix, "and who is thinking it over at leisure."
"I have taken no vow, no pledge," said Gertrude, very gravely; "I have nothing to repent of."
"My dear cousin, that was only a figure of speech. I am very sure that no one in your excellent family has anything to repent of."
"And yet we are always repenting!" Gertrude exclaimed. "That is what I mean by our being dreary. You know it perfectly well; you only pretend that you don"t."
Felix gave a quick laugh. "The half hour is going on, and yet you are handsomer than ever. One must be careful what one says, you see."
"To me," said Gertrude, "you can say anything."
Felix looked at her, as an artist might, and painted for some time in silence.
"Yes, you seem to me different from your father and sister--from most of the people you have lived with," he observed.
"To say that one"s self," Gertrude went on, "is like saying--by implication, at least--that one is better. I am not better; I am much worse. But they say themselves that I am different. It makes them unhappy."
"Since you accuse me of concealing my real impressions, I may admit that I think the tendency--among you generally--is to be made unhappy too easily."
"I wish you would tell that to my father," said Gertrude.
"It might make him more unhappy!" Felix exclaimed, laughing.
"It certainly would. I don"t believe you have seen people like that."
"Ah, my dear cousin, how do you know what I have seen?" Felix demanded.
"How can I tell you?"