A Fair Mystery: The Story of a Coquette

"I hate to be watched," interrupted Doris.

"As a man I was guilty; as an artist, guiltless, for an artist, above all things, loves and serves his art, and considers all he sees as subservient to it. I came to Downsbury in quest of studies in still life. For years I have had an ideal of a face that I wished to paint in my best mood: a face after which all should wonder. I have searched cities and country; I have wandered in my quest for that face through other lands; and when I saw you under the tree, I was all the artist – all lost in art – for yours is the face I have been seeking for my canvas."

"Why, do you mean I would make a picture – a real picture?" demanded Doris, with studied simplicity.

"Yes; ten thousand times yes! Under this greenwood tree, your basket at your feet, your hat swinging in your hand, your eyes lifted – yes, a picture to be known and praised forever. Child, I will make your beauty immortal."

This was what she had dreamed.

A poet was singing her praises, and would do so, whether she played him false or not; and here was an artist to paint her for a world to admire.

Could she who so inspired men tie herself to the narrow bounds of one humble, rustic hearth? Never!

"May I paint you?" demanded the artist. "May I set you in canvas, in immortal youth and loveliness, to live years, perhaps centuries hence, in deathless beauty?"

"The picture – the face – will live! Where, in those far off ages, shall I be?" asked Doris, earnestly.

Gregory Leslie thought the word and mood strange.

"The best part of you is immortal," he said, gently.

"And what would you call my picture?"

"'Innocence.' Yes, 'Innocence' should be its name!"

"But what in me seems to you the image of 'Innocence?'"

Stranger question still. But he answered as an artist:

"You have an ideal brow, rounded at the temples as the old masters painted their angels. Your eyes are large, bright, clear, as seeing more of heaven than earth. Your lips have the most exquisite curve. The form of your face, its coloring, your hair, are all simply perfect!"

"You shall paint my picture!" cried Doris, joyously, changing her mood. "You need ask no consent but mine!"

CHAPTER XIII

"FAITHLESS AND DEBONAIR."

"Doris, you must not do it. I cannot bear it!"

"I don't see what difference it makes to you, Earle, and you have no right to interfere, and do it I surely shall."

Thus Doris and Earle on the theme of portrait painting.

Gregory Leslie was too astute a man, too experienced, to take his wandering naiad at her word, and paint her picture, asking no consent but her own. Never had a girl so puzzled him. Her rare beauty, found in so remote and rural a district; her delicate hands, soft, cultured tones, exquisite, high-bred grace, in contrast with her very common, simple, if tasteful, dress: and then her words, so odd – either purest innocence and simplicity, or curious art in wickedness. Who and what was the young enchantress? Then, too, her smile, the turn of her neck, her way evoked constantly some shadowy reminiscence, some picture set far back and grown dim in the gallery of his memory, but surely there. Again and again he strove to catch the fleeing likeness, but at once, with the effort, it was gone.

"If you want to paint me, begin!" said Doris, child-like.

"Pardon. It would inconvenience you to stand here; the sketch even would take time. It must be a work of care. I shall do better if I have your permission to accompany you home. Also I must ask your parents' consent."

"They don't mind!" cried Doris, petulantly, after some little hesitation. "I am only a farmer's daughter." She flushed with bitter vexation at the thought, but seeing the artist immovable in his purpose, added: "I live at Brackenside, it is not far; you can easily come there."

"If you will permit," said Gregory, with courtesy.

"You can come. I have no objection," said Doris, with the air of a princess.

She picked up her basket, and moved away with the grace, the proud bearing of "the daughter of a hundred earls."

Gregory Leslie marveled more and more. As an artist, he was enraptured; as a man, he was puzzled by this new Daphne.

Doris, seemingly forgetting her new cavalier, yet taking a rapid side look at him, considered that he was very handsome, if getting a little gray; also, that his air was that of a man of the world, a dash of the picturesque added to the culture of cities.

She wished Earle would meet them, and go into a spasm of jealousy. But Earle was spared that experience, and only Mark, Patty, and Mattie Brace were at the farm-house, to be dazzled with the beauty's conquest.

Arrived at the gate, Doris turned with proud humility to her escort.

"This is my home. I do not like it. Most people think the place pretty."

"It is a paradise!" said Leslie, enthusiastically.

"Then it must have a serpent in it," quoth Doris.

"I hope not," said Leslie.

"It has. I have felt it bite!"

Mark Brace, with natural courtesy, came from the door to meet them.

"This is an artist that I met at the knoll," said Doris, calmly. "He is looking for subjects for pictures. I think he mentioned his name was Mr. Leslie, and he wishes to paint me."

"Wants a picture of you, my darling!" said honest Mark, his face lighting with a smile. "Then he shows his good taste. Walk in, sir; walk in. Let us ask my wife."

He led the way into the cool, neat, quaint kitchen-room, hated of Doris' soul, but to the artist a study most excellent.

Then did the artist look at the Brace family in deepest wonder. Mark had called the wood-nymph "my darling," and asserted a father's right; and yet not one line or trace of Mark was in this dainty maid.

Leslie turned to study Patty, who had made her courtesy and taken the basket of berries – dark, strong, plump, tidy, intelligent, kindly, plain. Not a particle of Patty in this aristocratic young beauty, who called her "mother" in a slighting tone.

Then, in despair, he fixed his eyes on Mattie Brace – brown, earnest, honest, dark, sad eyes, good, calm – just as little like the pearl-and-gold beauty as the others.

Meanwhile Mark and Patty eyed each other.

"I want to speak to you a minute, Mark," said Patty; and the pair retired to the dairy.

Doris flushed angrily, and drummed on the window-sill.

"Behold a mystery!" said Gregory Leslie to himself.

"Mark," said Patty, in the safe retirement of the milk-pans, "this needs considering. Doris is not our own. To have her picture painted and exhibited in London to all the great folk, may be the last thing her mother would desire: and her mother is yet living, as the money comes always the same way."