“And how’s the work getting on?” Marian asked, as they went into the studio.
“Lamely. Only hobbling. I’ve finished Mrs. West. What do _you_ think of it?”
Marian looked long at the portrait before she answered. It was evidently very like the original, but there was something in the face that puzzled her.
“You told me she was a doll!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, but I’ve discovered that dolls have hearts as well as sawdust in them.”
“Ye-es, I think so,” she answered. “I like it.”
He laid his hands on her shoulders, and moved her so that the light fell full upon her face; then scanned her features closely.
“I’m right,” he said, “right. Go and look in the glass there, then look at the picture again, and see if _you_ don’t find something of yourself reflected in what I meant to be a portrait of another woman.”
Marian looked closely again at the picture; it was true; as he said there was a distinct semblance of herself, a fleeting likeness which it was impossible to define, but unmistakable.
“You see, Marian, I’ve tried doing without you and I cannot; we must never leave each other again—why should we? We love each other—you do love me still, dear, don’t you?”
“Of course you do! That sounds so cold. It seems to me this way,” he said, sitting down, drawing her on to his knee and resting his head against her shoulder; “life’s so short, and there’s only one thing in it worth having; your love’s just all to me. So why waste any of our time by being apart? We can go away and live quite quietly somewhere, or live here—it’s cheap enough; and if I only paint a picture a year we shall be well off, even if they’re not my best,” he added, sighing and looking at the portrait.
She did not answer him, but fondled his hair and pressed him close to her, which she knew would speak to him more eloquently than any words she could put together. Never before had she felt quite so helpless to deal with this love of his, which had grown so much more intense than she had counted upon its becoming. At any rate the time was not yet come for her to show him anything of coldness, and her cool fingers ran through his thick dark hair and he was comforted.
“I must put you into another picture; make myself immortal by painting you always; you must be my Emma. What shall it be next? As a Bacchante? Your eyes wild with excitement and your cheeks glowing like red roses? Your lips just parted and your little teeth peeping out between? I _could_ do it; by Jove, I will do it. We’ll begin to-morrow; we mustn’t work to-day. That’s my mistake! I ought never to have tried to paint without you as my model.”