Part 15 (1/2)
”Stay, my child. Come into the studio, and let me read something light and pleasant to you.”
”Not for the universe! The sight of a book would give me brain fever, I verily believe.”
She tried unavailingly to shake off his hand.
”Why do you shrink from me, my pupil?”
”Because I am sick, weary; and you watch me so that I get restless and nervous. Do let me go! I want to sleep.”
An impatient stamp emphasized the words, and, as he relaxed his clasp of her fingers, she hastened to her room, and locked the door to prevent all intrusion. Taking off her bonnet, she drew the heavy shawl closely around her shoulders and threw herself across the foot of the bed, burying her face in her hands, lest the bare walls should prove witnesses of her agony.
Six hours later she lay there still with pale fingers pressed to burning, dry eyelids.
CHAPTER XII
A SACRIFICE
Once more the labours of a twelvemonth had been exhibited at the Academy of Design--some to be cla.s.sed among things ”that were not born to die;” others to fall into nameless graves. Mr. Clifton was represented by an exquisite OEnone, and on the same wall, in a ma.s.sive oval frame, hung the first finished production of his pupil. For months after Russell's departure she sat before her easel, slowly filling up the outline sketched while his eyes watched her. Application sometimes trenches so closely upon genius as to be mistaken for it in its results, and where both are happily blended, the bud of Art expands in immortal perfection. Electra spared no toil, and so it came to pa.s.s that the faultless head of her idol excited intense and universal admiration. In the catalogue it was briefly mentioned as ”No.
17--a portrait; first effort of a young female artist.” _Connoisseurs_, who had committed themselves by extravagant praise, sneered at the announcement of the catalogue, and, after a few inquiries, blandly a.s.serted that no tyro could have produced it; that the master had wrought out its perfection, and generously allowed the pupil to monopolize the encomiums. In vain Mr.
Clifton disclaimed the merit, and a.s.serted that he had never touched the canvas; that she had jealously refused to let him aid her. Incredulous smiles and unmistakable motions of the head were the sole results of his expostulation. Electra was indignant at the injustice meted out to her, and, as might have been expected, rebelled against the verdict. Some weeks after the close of the exhibition, the OEnone was purchased and the portrait sent home. Electra placed it on the easel once more, and stood before it in rapt contemplation. Coldness, silence, neglect, all were forgotten when she looked into the deep, beautiful eyes, and upon the broad, bold, matchless brow.
She had not the faintest hope that he would ever cherish a tenderer feeling for her; but love is a plant of strange growth. A curious plant, truly, and one which will not bear transplanting, as many a luckless experiment has proved. To-day, as Electra looked upon her labours, the coils of Time seemed to fall away; the vista of Eternity opened before her, peopled with two forms, which on earth walked widely separate paths, and over her features stole a serene, lifted expression, as if, after painful scaling, she had risen above the cloud-region and caught the first rays of perpetual suns.h.i.+ne.
Mr. Clifton had watched her for some moments with lowering brow and jealous hatred of the picture. Approaching, he looked over her shoulder, and said--
”Electra, I must speak to you; hear me. You hug a phantom to your heart; Russell does not and will not love you, other than as his cousin.”
The blood deserted her face, leaving a greyish pallor, but the eyes sought his steadily, and the rippling voice lost none of its rich cadence.
”Except as his cousin, I do not expect Russell to love me.”
”Oh child! you deceive yourself; this is a hope that you cling to with mad tenacity.”
She wrung her hand from his, and drew her figure to its utmost height.
”No; you must hear me now. I have a right to question you--the right of my long, silent, faithful love. You may deny it, but that matters little; be still, and listen. Did you suppose that I was simply a generous man when I offered to guard and aid you--when I took you to my house, placed you in my mother's care, and lavished affection upon you? If so, put away the hallucination. Consider me no longer your friend, look at me as I am, a jealous and selfishly exacting man, who stands before you to-day and tells you he loves you. Oh, Electra! From the morning when you first showed me your sketches, you have been more than my life to me. Every hope I have centred in you. I have not deceived myself; I knew that you loved Russell.
When he came here, I saw that the old fascination still kept its hold upon you, but I saw, too, what you saw quite as plainly--that in Russell Aubrey's heart there is room for nothing but ambition. I knew how you suffered, and I believed it was the death-struggle of your love. But, instead, I find you, day by day, before that easel--oblivious of me, of everything but the features you cling to so insanely. Do you wonder that I hate that portrait? Do you wonder that I am growing desperate? If he loved you in return, I could bear it better; but as it is, I am tortured beyond all endurance. I have spent nearly three years in trying to gain your heart; all other aims have faded before this one absorbing love. To-day I lay it at your feet, and ask if I have not earned some reward. Oh, Electra!
have you no grat.i.tude?”
A scarlet spot burned on his pale cheeks, and the mild liquid grey eyes sparkled like stars.
He stretched out his hand, but she drew back a step.
”G.o.d forgive me! but I have no such love for you.”