The Tiger Lily

The Italian name of the wine of which he had freely partaken suggested the Conte, but only for a moment, and then he was brooding again over the failure of the model to keep her appointment.

“Surely she is not ill,” he said excitedly; then, with an angry gesticulation, “well, if she is, what is it to me? Poor woman! she will get better, and I must wait.”

He hurried into his room, and turned up the gas there, but he could not rest without going back into the studio and turning the gas on full before dragging round the great easel, and throwing back the curtains to unveil the picture, with its graceful white figure standing right out from the group like sunlit ivory. But a shadow was cast upon the upper part by a portion of the curtain whose rings had caught upon the rod, and a strange shudder ran through him, for the paper he had used to hide the face looked dark, and, to his excited vision, took the form of the close black veil, through which a pair of brilliant eyes appeared to flash.

Snatching back the curtain, he wheeled the easel into its place, with its face to the wall, turned down the gas after fastening the door, and threw himself upon his bed to lie tossing hour after hour, never once going right off to sleep, but thinking incessantly of the beautiful model, and the masked face whose eyes burned into his brain.

Chapter Fifteen.

After the Lapse

Dale’s hands trembled, and there were feverish marks in his cheeks as he dressed next morning, and then walked into his sitting-room and rang.

The breakfast things were laid, and in a few minutes Keren-Happuch came through the studio with his coffee and toast, while an hour later, without daring to speak to him, she bore the almost untouched breakfast away.

As soon as he was alone, he made an effort to master himself, and walked firmly into the studio, drew forward his easel, and after removing the curtain, stood there to study his work and criticise and mark its failings.

He found none to mark, but stood there waiting for its living, breathing model, knowing well enough that he must check the madness attacking him – at once, in its incipient stage.

“I’m as weak a fool as other men,” he muttered. “Bah! I can easily disillusionise myself. I’ll insist upon her removing her veil to-day. It is that and the foolish wish to see her face that has upset me, I being in a weak, nervous state. Once I’ve finished and had the work framed, I really will give up painting for a few weeks and rest.”

That maddening day passed, but no model came, and as soon as it was dark he went out, but not until the last post had come in that was likely to bring him a letter of excuse from his sitter.

He went straight to the street where Jaggs lodged, to learn that he was away from home. The people of the house thought that he had gone down somewhere in the country to sit for an artist who was doing a sea-picture, but they were not sure whether it was Surrey or Cornwall.

Somewhere Leather Lane way, Jaggs had told him that the father lived. Perhaps he was ill, and his child was nursing him. But how could he go about asking at random in that neighbourhood about the missing model?

But he did, seeking out first one and then another handsome picturesque vagabond belonging to the artistic Italian colony, and questioning them, but without avail. They had never heard the name.

He tried a lodging-house or two, upon whose steps Italian women were seated, dark-eyed, black-haired, and with showy glass bead necklaces about their throats. But no; those who could understand him neither knew the name, nor had they heard of a Sardinian patriot whose daughter went out to sit.

Dale returned to his rooms to pass another sleepless night, hoping that the next morning would put an end to his anxiety, fever, or excitement, whichever it was – for he savagely refrained from confessing to himself that he grasped what his trouble might be.

But the morning came, and seven more mornings, to find him seated before his unfinished picture, practising a kind of self-deceit, and telling himself that he was feverish, haggard, and mentally careworn on account of his dread of not being able to finish his picture as satisfactorily as he could wish.

He had tried hard during the interval, but, in spite of all his efforts, he had been able to get tidings of neither Jaggs nor the model the man had introduced; while to make his state the more wretched, Pacey had not been near him, and for some unaccountable reason Leronde, too, had stayed away.

He was seated, wild-eyed and despairing, one morning, when Keren-Happuch came running in, breathless with her exertions to reach the studio, and bear the news which she felt would be like life to the young artist.

“Here she is, sir!” panted the girl, “she’s come at last;” and then ran down to open the front door.

Dale staggered and turned giddy, but listened with eyes fixed upon the door, hardly daring to believe till he saw it open, and the dark, closely veiled figure enter quickly.

Then there was a reaction, and he asked himself why he had suffered like this. What was the poorly dressed woman who had just entered to him?

His lips parted, but he did not speak, only waited.

“Am I too late?” she said, in her strongly accented French. “Some other? The picture finished?”

“No,” he said coldly; and he wondered at her collected manner as he caught the glint of a pair of searching eyes. “I have waited for you. Why have you been so long?”

“I have been ill,” she said simply, and her tones suggested suffering.

“Ill?” he cried excitedly; and he took a step towards her with outstretched hand. “I am very sorry.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly, and ignoring the extended hand. “I am once more well, and I must be quick. Shall I stay one more hour every day and you pay me more? Oh, no. For the same!”

“Yes, pray do,” he said huskily, and he thrust his hand into his pocket to pay her in advance according to his custom, but she ignored the money as she had previously passed his hand without notice, and after pointing to the door, she hurried through into his room, to return in a wonderfully short space of time and take her place upon the dais.

Dale began to paint eagerly, feverishly, so as to lose himself in his work, but in a few minutes he raised his eyes to see the glint of those which seemed to be watching him suspiciously through the thick veil, as if ready to take alarm at the slightest word or gesture on his part, and at once the power to continue his work was gone. He felt that he must speak, and in a deep husky voice he began —

“You have been very ill, then?”

“Yes, monsieur,” curtly and distantly.

“I wondered very much at not seeing you. I was alarmed.”

“I do not see why monsieur should feel alarm.”

“Of course, on account of my picture,” he said awkwardly. Then laying down his palette and brushes, he saw that the model gave a sudden start, but once more stood motionless as he took out his pocket-book, and withdrew the pencil.

“Will you give me your address?”

“Why should monsieur wish for my address?”

“To communicate with you. If I had known, I should have been spared much anxiety. Tell me, and I will write it down.”

“With that of the women who wait monsieur’s orders? No!”

This was spoken so imperiously that Dale replaced the pencil and book, and took up palette and brushes.

“As you will,” he said, and he began to paint once more.

But the power to convey all he wished to the canvas had gone, and he turned to her again.

“Tell me more about yourself,” he said. “You are a foreigner, and friendless here in England: I know that, but tell me more. I may be of service to you.”

“Monsieur is being of service to me. He pays me for occupying this degrading position to which I am driven.”

There was so much angry bitterness in her tones that Dale was again silenced; but his pulse beat high, and as he applied his brush to his canvas from time to time, there were only results that he would have to wipe away.

“I am sorry you consider the task degrading,” he said at last. “I have endeavoured to make it as little irksome as I could.”

“Monsieur has been most kind till now,” she said quickly; and then, in a bitterly contemptuous tone, “monsieur forgets that I am waiting. His pencil is idle.”

He started angrily, and went on painting, but the eyes were still watching him, and, strive all he would, there was the intense desire growing once more to see that face which was hidden from him so closely. He knew that he ought to respect his visitor’s scruples, but he could not, and again and again he shivered with a sensation nearly approaching to dread. But the wish was still supreme. That black woollen veil piqued him, and after a few minutes of worthless work, he asked her if she was weary.

“Yes,” she replied.