Part 38 (2/2)
”Mr. Palma, it is my mother. No other face ever looked like that, no other eyes except those in the _Mater Dolorosa_ resemble these beautiful sad brown eyes, that rained their tears upon my head. Do you think a child ever mistook another for her own mother? Can the face I first learned to know and to love, the lovely--oh! how lovely--face that bent over my cradle ever--ever be forgotten? If I never saw her again in this world, could I fail to recognise her in heaven? My own mother!”
”Obstinate, infatuated little ignoramus! Read--and be convinced.”
He opened and held before her a volume of engravings of the pictures and statues in the Louvre, and turning to the Leonardo Da Vinci's, moved his fingers slowly beneath the t.i.tle.
Her eyes fell upon ”_La Joconde_,” then wandered back to the portrait over the fireplace; and through her tears broke a radiant smile.
”Yes, sir, I perfectly understand. Your engraving is of Da Vinci's painting, and of course I suppose it is very fine, though the face is not pretty; but up yonder! that is mother! My mother who kissed and cried over me, and hugged me so close to her heart. Oh! Your Da Vinci never even dreamed of, much less painted, anything half so heavenly as my darling mother's face!”
Closing the book, Mr. Palma threw it on the table, and as he glanced from the lovely countenance of the girl to that of the woman on the wall, something like a sigh heaved his broad chest.
Did the wan meek shadow of his own patient much-suffering young mother lift her melancholy image in the long silent adytum of his proud heart, over whose chill chambers ambition and selfishness had pa.s.sed with ossifying touch?
Years ago, at the initial steps of his professional career, he had set before him one glittering goal, the Chief-Justices.h.i.+p. In preparing for the long race that stretched ahead of him, seeing only the Judicial crown that sparkled afar off, he had laid aside his tender sensibilities, his warmest impulses of affection and generosity as so many subtle fetters, so much unprofitable luggage, so much useless weight to r.e.t.a.r.d and burden him.
While his physical and mental development had brilliantly attested the efficacy of the stern regiment he systematically imposed,--his emotional nature long discarded, had grown so feeble and inane from desuetude, that its very existence had become problematical. But to-day, deeply impressed by the intensity of love which Regina could not restrain at the sight of the portrait, strange softening memories began to stir in their frozen sleep, and to hint of earlier, warmer, boyish times, even as magnolia, mahogany, and cocoa trunks stranded along icy European sh.o.r.es, babble of the far sweet sunny south, and the torrid seas whose restless blue pulses drove them to hyperborean realms.
”Is it indeed so striking and unmistakable a likeness? After all, the instincts of nature are stronger than the canons of art. Your mother is an exceedingly beautiful woman; but, little girl, let me tell you, that you are not in the least like her.”
”I know that sad fact, and it often grieves me.”
”You must certainly resemble your father, for I never saw mother and child so entirely dissimilar.”
He saw the glow of embarra.s.sment, of acute pain tinging her throat and cheeks, and wondered how much of the past had been committed to her keeping; how far she shared her mother's confidence. During the year that she had been an inmate of his house she had never referred to the mystery of her parentage, and despite his occasional efforts to become better acquainted had shrunk from his presence, and remained the same shy reserved stranger she appeared the week of her arrival.
”Is not the portrait for me? Mother wrote that she intended sending me something which she hoped I would value more than all the pretty clothes, and it must be this, her own beautiful precious face.”
”Yes, it is yours; but I presume you will be satisfied to allow it to hang where it is. The light is singularly good.”
”No, sir, I want it.”
”Well you have it, where you can see it at any time.”
”But I wish to keep it, all to myself, in my room, where it will be the last thing I see at night, the first in the morning--my sunrise.”
”How unpardonably selfish you are. Would you deprive me of the pleasure of admiring a fine work of art, merely to shut it in, converting yourself into a pagan, and the portrait into an idol?”
”But, Mr. Palma, you never loved any one or anything so very dearly, that it seemed holy in your eyes; much too sacred for others to look at.”
”Certainly not. I am pleased to say that is a mild stage of lunacy, with which I have as yet never been threatened. Idolatry is a phase of human weakness I have been unable to tolerate.”
He saw a faint smile lurking about the perfect curves of her rosy mouth, but her eyes remained fixed on the picture.
”I should be glad to know what you find so amusing in my remark.”
She shook her head, but the obstinate dimples reappeared.
<script>