The Tiger Lily

“Then we will rest a few minutes.”

“No, monsieur; go on. I am your slave for the time.”

He started at her words, and as much at her tone, which was as full of hauteur as if she were some princess. But now, instead of this driving him in very shame to continue his work, it only impressed him the more. There was a mystery about her and her ways. The almost insolent contempt with which she treated him made him angry, and his anger increased to rage as he fully realised how weak and mortal he was as man. He tried not to own it to himself, but he knew that a strange passion had developed itself within him, and with mingled pleasure and pain he felt that this beautiful woman could read him through and through, and that hour by hour her feelings toward him became more and more those of contempt.

He did not stop to reason, for he was rapidly becoming blind to everything but his unconquerable desire to see her face. There were moments when he felt ready to rage against himself for his weakness and, as he called it, folly; but all this was swept away, and at last, as the sitting went on and the model haughtily refused to leave the dais for a time to rest, he found himself asking whether there was not after all truth in the old legends, and whether, enraged by his shrinking from Lady Dellatoria’s passionate avowals, the author of all evil had not sent some beautiful demon to tempt him and show him how weak he was after all. It was maddening, and at last he threw down palette and brushes to begin striding up and down the room, carefully averting his eyes from his model, who stood there as motionless as if she were some lovely statue.

At last he returned to his canvas.

“You must be tired now,” he said hurriedly. “Rest for a while.”

“I’m not tired now,” she replied coldly, “if monsieur will continue.”

“I cannot paint to-day,” he said hoarsely. “You trouble me. What I have done is valueless.”

“I trouble monsieur?” she said coldly. “Am I not patient? – can I be more still?”

He made a mighty effort over self, and for the moment conquered. Seizing his brushes and palette, he began to paint once more, but in a reckless way, as if merely to keep himself occupied, but as he turned his eyes from his canvas from time to time to study the beautiful model, standing there in that imperious attitude, strange, mysterious, and weird, with the black enmasking above the graceful voluptuous figure, he lost more and more the self-command he had maintained.

For a few minutes he told himself that he was mistaken, that her eyes must be closed; but it was, he knew too well, a mere mental subterfuge: they were gleaming through that black network, and piercing him to the very soul.

He could bear it no longer, and again throwing down brushes and palette, he paced the room for a minute or two before turning to the marble figure standing so motionless before him.

“I tell you I cannot paint,” he cried angrily. “It is as if you were casting some spell over me. I must see your face. Why do you persist in this fancy? Your masked countenance takes off my attention. I beg – I insist – remove that veil.”

“I do not quite understand monsieur,” she said coldly. “He speaks in a language that is not mine, neither is it his. He confuses me. I am trying to be a patient model, but everything is wrong to-day. Will he tell me what I should do to give him satisfaction?”

“Take off that veil!” cried Dale.

The model caught up the cloak and flung it around her shoulders.

“Now, quick!” cried Dale excitedly, “that veil!”

“Monsieur is ill. Shall I call for help?”

“No, no, I am not ill. Once more I beg, I pray of you – take off that veil.”

“But monsieur is so strange – so unlike himself,” she cried, as, taking another step forward, Dale caught the hand which held the cloak in his.

“Now!” he cried wildly, with his eyes flashing, and trying to pierce the woollen mask – “that veil!” For a moment the warm soft hand clung to his convulsively, and the other rose with the arm in a graceful movement towards the shrouded face; but, as if angry with herself for being about to yield to his mad importunity, she snatched away the hand he held, and with the other thrust him back violently.

“It is infamous!” she cried, with her eyes flashing through the veil. “It is an insult. Monsieur, it is to the woman you love that you should speak those words;” and, with an imperious gesture, she stepped down from the dais as if it had been her throne, and with her face turned toward Dale, she walked with calm dignity, her head thrown back, and the folds of the cloak gathered round her, to the inner door, passed through, and for the first time, when it was closed, he heard the lock give a sharp snap as it was shot into the socket Dale stood motionless in the middle of the studio, his eyes bloodshot and his pulses throbbing heavily, unable for some little time either to think or move.

“Yes,” he muttered, as he grew calmer; “it was an insult, and she revenges herself upon me. An hour ago I was to her a chivalrous man in whose honour she could have faith. Now I am degraded in her eyes to the level of the brute, and – she trusts me no longer. Do I love this woman whose face I have never seen, or am I going mad?”

But he was alone now, and he grew more calm as the minutes glided by; and once more making a tremendous effort to command himself, he waited as patiently as he could for the opening of the door.

In a few minutes there was the sharp snap again of the lock being turned, the door was thrown open, and the tall dark figure swept out into the great studio with head erect and indignant mien.

She had to pass close by him to reach the farther door, but she looked straight before her, completely ignoring his presence till in excited tones he said – “One moment – pray stop.”

She had passed him, but she arrested her steps and half turned her head as a queen might, to listen to some suppliant who was about to offer his petition.

“Forgive me,” he panted. “I was not myself. You will forget all this. Do not let my madness drive you away.”

He was standing with his hands extended as if to seize her again, but she gathered her cloak tightly round her, so that he could see once more the curves and contour of the form he had transferred to canvas, as she passed on to the door, where she stopped and waited for him, according to his custom, to turn the key.

Her mute action and gesture dragged him to the door as if he were completely under her influence; and, throwing it open, he once more said pleadingly, and in a low deep voice which trembled from the emotion by which he was overcome —

“Forgive me: I was half mad.”

But she made no sign. Walking swiftly now, she passed out on to the landing, descended the staircase, and as he stood listening, he heard the light step and the rustling of her garments, till she reached the heavy front door, which was opened and closed with a heavy, dull, echoing sound.

But still Dale did not move. He stood as if bound there by the spell of which he had spoken, till all at once he uttered a faint cry, snatched his hat, and followed her out into the street.

Too late. There was no sign of the black cloaked figure, and, after hurrying in different directions for several minutes, he returned to his studio utterly crushed.

“Gone!” he muttered, as he threw himself into a chair. “I shall never see her more. Great heavens! Do I love this woman? Am I so vile?”

“Please, sir, may I come in?”

Dale started up and tried to look composed, as little Keren-Happuch entered with a note in her hand.

“One o’ them scented ones, sir,” said the girl. “It was in the letter-box. I found it two hours ago, but I did not like to bring it in.”

As soon as Dale was alone, his eyes fell upon the Contessa’s well-known hand, and, without opening the letter, he gazed at it, and recalled the past.

At last his lips parted, and he said thoughtfully —

“Loved me with an unholy love. It is retribution! She must have felt as I do now.”

Chapter Sixteen.

Job Pacey at Home

Pacey sat back in a shabby old chair, in a shabby room. The surroundings were poor and yet rich – the former applying to the furniture, the latter to the many clever little gems presented to him by his artist friends, many of whom were still poor as he, others high up on the steps leading to the temple of fame.

Joseph Pacey’s hair needed cutting, and his beard looked tangled and wild; and as he sat back in his slippers, he looked the very opposite of his vis-à-vis, the exquisitely neat, waxed-moustached, closely clipped young Frenchman who assisted briskly in the formation of the cloud of smoke which floated overhead by making and consuming cigarettes, what time the tenant of the shabby rooms nursed a huge meerschaum pipe, which he kept in a glow and replenished, as he would an ordinary fire, by putting a pinch of fresh fuel on the top from time to time.

“Humph!” he ejaculated, frowning. “And so you think he has got the feminine fever badly?”

“But you do say it funny, my friend,” said Leronde. “Why, of course. Toujours – always the same. As we say – ‘cherchez la femme.’ Vive la femme! But helas! How she do prove our ruin, and turn us as you say round your turn.”

There was silence for a few moments, during which, as he sat shaggy and frowning in the smoke, Pacey looked as if some magician were gradually turning his head into that of a lion.

“Seen him the last day or two?”

“Yes,” said Leronde, putting out his tongue and running the edge of a newly rolled cigarette paper along the moist tip. “I go to see him yesterday.”