Part 52 (1/2)
She had lifted a cl.u.s.ter of lilies from a vase to regroup them, and as her thoughts turned in this direction she bent her eyes upon their large white blooms meditatively, and a faint rose flush warmed her cheeks.
”Ce sont des fleurs etranges, Et traitresses, avec leurs airs de sceptres d'anges, De thyrses lumineux pour doigts de seraphins, Leurs parfums sont trop forts, tout ensemble, et trop fins.”
”It is strange,” she thought, ”that I should have corresponded so many months with 'Gys Grandit' through my admiration for his books--and that he should turn out to be the son of poor Abbe Vergniaud! Cyrillon! It is a pretty name! And since we met--since that terrible scene in the church in Paris,--since he knew who I was, he has not written. And, and for his poor father's death . . . I suppose he thought it was sufficient to telegraph the news of the death to my uncle. But I am sorry he does not write to me any more!--I valued his letters--they were such brilliant essays on all the movements and politics of the time. It was just a little secret of mine;--it was pleasant to think I was in correspondence with such a genius. However, he has had so much to think of since then . . .” She set the lilies in their vase again, inhaling their delicious odour as she did so.
”The flowers of the saints and martyrs!” she said, ”I do not wonder that the artists chose them for that purpose; they are so white-and pure-and pa.s.sionless . . .”
A slight crash disturbed her self-communion, and she hastened to see what had fallen. It was a small clay figure of ”Eros”,--a copy of a statuette found in the ruins of Pompeii. The nail supporting its bracket had given way. Angela had been rather fond of this little work of art, and as she knelt to pick up the fragments she was more vexed at the accident than she cared to own. She looked wistfully at the pretty moulded broken limbs of the little G.o.d as she put them all in a heap together.
”What a pity!” she murmured, ”I am not at all superst.i.tious, yet I wish anything in the room had come to grief rather than this! It is not a good omen!”
She moved across the floor again and stood for a moment inert, one hand resting lightly on the amber silk draperies which veiled her picture.
”There was no truth at all in that rumour about Florian's 'Phillida';--'Pon-Pon,' as they call her,” she thought, ”She serves as a model to half the artists in Rome. Unfortunate creature. She is one of the most depraved and reckless of her cla.s.s, so I hear--and Florian is far too refined and fastidious to even recognise such a woman, outside his studio. The Marquis Fontenelle only wished to defend himself by trying to include another man in the charge of libertinage, when he himself was meditating the most perfidious designs on Sylvie.
Poor Fontenelle! One must try and think as kindly as possible of him now--he is dead. But I cannot think it was right of him to accuse my Florian!”
Just then she heard a soft knocking. It came from the door at the furthest end of the studio, one which communicated with a small stone courtyard, which in its turn opened out to a narrow street leading down to the Tiber. It was the entrance at which models presented themselves whenever Angela needed them.
”Angela!” called a melodious voice, which she recognised at once as the dearest to her in the world. ”Angela!”
She hurried to the door but did not open it.
”Florian!” she said softly, putting her lips close to the panel, ”Florian, caro mio! Why are you here?”
”I want to come in,” said Florian, ”I have news, Angela! I must see you!”
She hesitated a moment longer, and then she undid the bolt, and admitted him. He entered with a smiling and victorious air.
”I am all alone here,” she said at once, before he could speak, ”Father is at Frascati on some business--and my uncle the Cardinal is at the Vatican. Will you not come back later?”
For all answer, Florian took her in his arms with quite a reverent tenderness, and kissed her softly on brow and lips.
”No, I will stay!” he said, ”I want to have you all to myself for a few minutes. I came to tell you, sweetest, that if I am to be the first to see your picture and pa.s.s judgment on it, I had better see it now, for I am going away to-morrow!”
”Going away!” echoed Angela, ”Where?”
”To Naples,” he answered, ”Only for a little while. They have purchased my picture 'Phillida et les Roses' for one of the museums there, and they want me to see if I approve of the position in which it is to be placed. They also wish to honour me by a banquet or something of the kind--an absurdly unnecessary affair, but still I think it is perhaps advisable that I should go.”
He spoke with an affectation of indifference, but any observer of him whose eyes were not blinded by affection, could have seen that he exhaled from himself an atmosphere of self-congratulation at the banquet proposition. Little honours impress little minds;--and a faint thrill of pain moved Angela as she saw him thus delighted with so poor and ordinary a compliment. In any other man it would have moved her to contempt, but in Florian--well!--she was only just a little sorry.
”Yes, perhaps it might look churlish of you not to accept,” she said, putting away from her the insidious suggestion that perhaps if Florian loved her as much as he professed, an invitation to a banquet at Naples would have had no attraction for him as compared with being present at the first view of her picture on the morning she had herself appointed--”I think under the circ.u.mstances you had better not see the picture till you come back!”
”Now, Angela!” he exclaimed vexedly, ”You know I will not consent to that! You have promised me that I shall be the first to see it--and here I am!”
”It should be seen by the morning light,” said Angela, a touch of nervousness beginning to affect her equanimity,--”This light is pale and waning, though the afternoon is so clear. You cannot see the coloring to the best advantage!”
”Am I not a painter also?” asked Varillo playfully, putting his arm round her waist,--”And can I not guess the effect in the morning light as well as if I saw it? Come, Angela mia! Unveil the great prodigy!”
and he laughed,--”You began it before we were affianced;--think what patience I have had for nearly two years!”
Angela did not reply at once. Somehow, his light laugh jarred upon her.