Part 6 (1/2)
When the portrait was sufficiently advanced, M. de Nailles came to the studio to judge of the likeness. He was delighted: ”Only, my friend, I think,” he cried to Marien, endeavoring to soften his one objection to the picture, ”that you have given her a look--how can I put it?--an expression very charming no doubt, but which is not that of a child of her age. You know what I mean. It is something tender--intense--profound, too feminine. It may come to her some day, perhaps--but hitherto Jacqueline's expression has been generally that of a merry, mischievous child.”
”Oh, papa!” cried the young girl, stung by the insult.
”You may possibly be right,” Marien hastened to reply, ”it was probably the fatigue of posing that gave her that expression.”
”Oh!” repeated Jacqueline, more shocked than ever.
”I can alter it,” said the painter, much amused by her extreme despair.
But Marien thought that Jacqueline had not in the least that precocious air which her father attributed to her, when standing before him she gave herself up to thoughts the current of which he followed easily, watching on her candid face its changes of expression. How could he have painted her other than she appeared to him? Was what he saw an apparition--or was it a work of magic?
Several times during the sittings M. de Nailles made his appearance in the studio, and after greatly praising the work, persisted in his objection that it made Jacqueline too old. But since the painter saw her thus they must accept his judgment. It was no doubt an effect of the grown-up costume that she had had a fancy to put on.
”After all,” he said to Jacqueline, ”it is of not much consequence; you will grow up to it some of these days. And I pay you my compliments in advance on your appearance in the future.”
She felt like choking with rage. ”Oh! is it right,” she thought, ”for parents to persist in keeping a young girl forever in her cradle, so to speak?”
CHAPTER IV. A DANGEROUS MODEL
Time pa.s.sed too quickly to please Jacqueline. Her portrait was finished at last, notwithstanding the willingness Marien had shown--or so it seemed to her--to retouch it unnecessarily that she might again and again come back to his atelier. But it was done at last. She glided into that dear atelier for the last time, her heart big with regret, with no hope that she would ever again put on the fairy robe which had, she thought, transfigured her till she was no longer little Jacqueline.
”I want you only for one moment, and I need only your face,” said Marien. ”I want to change--a line--I hardly know what to call it, at the corner of your mouth. Your father is right; your mouth is too grave.
Think of something amusing--of the Bal Blanc at Madame d'Etaples, or merely, if you like, of the satisfaction it will give you to be done with these everlasting sittings--to be no longer obliged to bear the burden of a secret, in short to get rid of your portrait-painter.”
She made him no answer, not daring to trust her voice.
”Come! now, on the contrary you are tightening your lips,” said Marien, continuing to play with her as a cat plays with a mouse--provided there ever was a cat who, while playing with its mouse, had no intention of crunching it. ”You are not merry, you are sad. That is not at all becoming to you.”
”Why do you attribute to me your own thoughts? It is you who will be glad to get rid of all this trouble.”
Fraulein Schult, who, while patiently adding st.i.tch after st.i.tch to the long strip of her crochet-work, was often much amused by the dialogues between sitter and painter, p.r.i.c.ked up her ears to hear what a Frenchman would say to what was evidently intended to provoke a compliment.
”On the contrary, I shall miss you very much,” said Marien, quite simply; ”I have grown accustomed to see you here. You have become one of the familiar objects of my studio. Your absence will create a void.”
”About as much as if this or that were gone,” said Jacqueline, in a hurt tone, pointing first to a j.a.panese bronze and then to an Etruscan vase; ”with only this difference, that you care least for the living object.”
”You are bitter, Mademoiselle.”
”Because you make me such provoking answers, Monsieur. My feeling is different,” she went on impetuously, ”I could pa.s.s my whole life watching you paint.”
”You would get tired of it probably in the long run.”
”Never!” she cried, blus.h.i.+ng a deep red.
”And you would have to put up with my pipe--that big pipe yonder--a horror.”
”I should like it,” she cried, with conviction.
”But you would not like my bad temper. If you knew how ill I can behave sometimes! I can scold, I can become unbearable, when this, for example,” here he pointed with his mahlstick to the Savonarola, ”does not please me.”