Just at first I felt only amusement and annoyance. Then gradually I used to expect the soft look to come into the beautiful eyes, the touch of the warm lips on my hand began to stir and thrill me. I felt a vague dislike and distrust of the girl mentally, I thought she was vain, selfish, mercenary, revengeful, and bad-tempered, but with all that Nature had nothing to do. Her servants, the senses, submitted to the youth and beauty of the newcomer, and that was all Nature cared about.
One afternoon she was posing as usual, and I was painting, deeply absorbed, on the picture of the "Bacchante" when her voice suddenly disturbed me.
"Certainly," I exclaimed, looking up and laying down my brush.
The girl laid down her spray of ivy-leaves, walked across the space intervening between us, and, before I was aware of her intention, threw her arms round my neck and kissed me.
The kiss seemed to burn my lips, but with the current of passion I also felt a storm of anger against her. I sprang up and seized her shoulders, pushing her away from me.
"Don't, Trevor, don't, you are hurting me; you are hurting my shoulders," she exclaimed, the tears starting to her eyes.
I took my hands from her arms, and saw my grasp had left deep marks of crimson on them.
"Go and get dressed then, and go," I said furiously; "I'm not going to paint any more." I pushed my chair away and threw the palette and brushes on to the table near.
Veronica shrank from me and turned pale. In that moment the intense beauty of the face and figure was borne in upon me, she clung as if for support to the easel with one soft hand, all the youthful body seemed to shrink together in a beautiful dismay, great tears rolled down the cheeks from the dark reproachful eyes. I saw it all for one moment, feeling the anger sinking down under that strange influence that beauty has upon us. But I would not look at her. I turned my back on her and went over to the window, hardly conscious of what I did. I stood there for a few moments; then, suddenly, there came a cry and the sound of a fall behind me. I looked round and saw her lying, a little crushed heap, by the couch where she usually dressed.
I sprang forward, full of self-reproach. How foolish I had been! So unnecessarily harsh! I went to her. In obedience to my order, she had put some of her clothes on, and now lay there senseless apparently and quite white, her arms, still bare, stretched out on the floor beside her. She looked so pretty, so small, round, and helpless, that my heart went out to her. I felt I had been such a brute. As I stooped over her to raise her I saw the great crimson bruises I had left on her arms.