I went over to her low chair and sat down at her feet.

"Do you know you have shown me this afternoon something which I did not believe existed--an absolutely perfect body without a fault or flaw anywhere. I did not believe there could be anything so exquisitely beautiful."

She coloured, but a warm happy look came into her eyes as she gazed back at me.

"So I did really satisfy you? I realised your expectations?" she murmured. I lifted one of her hands to my lips and kissed it.

"Satisfied is not the word," I returned, looking up into the dark blue eyes above me with my own burning with admiration. "I was entranced.

May I shew it to you?"

"Yes, I should like to see it," she answered.

I rose and brought over to her the picture and set it so that we both could see it together. She gazed at it some time in silence.

"Do you like it?" I asked suddenly with keen anxiety.

"You have idealised me, Trevor!"

"It is impossible to idealise what is in itself divine," I replied quietly. She looked at me, her face full Of colour but her eyes alight and smiling.

"I am so glad, so happy that you are pleased. You have drawn it magnificently. What life you put into your things--they live and breathe."

She turned and looked at my clock.

"I must go now, I have been here ages." She began to put on her hat and cloak. When I had fastened the latter round her throat, I took both her hands in mine.

"May I expect you to-morrow?"

"To-morrow? Let me see. Well, I was going to the Carrington's to lunch. I promised to go, so I must; but I need not stay long. I can leave at three and be here at half past; only that will be too late in any case on account of the light, won't it?"

"Not if it is a bright day."

"You see, I need not accept any more invitations. I shan't, if I am coming here, but I have one or two old engagements I must keep."

I dropped her hands and turned away.

"But I can't let you give up your amus.e.m.e.nts, your time for me in this way!" I said.

Viola laughed.

"It's not much to give up--a few luncheons and teas! As long as I have time for my music I will give you all the rest."

She stood drawing on her gloves, facing the fire; her large soft, fearless eyes met mine across the red light.

I stepped forwards towards her impulsively.

"What _can_ I say? How can I thank you or express a hundredth part of my grat.i.tude?"

Viola shook her head with her softest smile and a warm caressing light in her eyes.

"You look at it quite wrongly," she said lightly. "My reward is great enough, surely! You are giving me immortality."

Then she went out, and I was alone.

For a fortnight I was happy. Viola came regularly every day to the studio, and the picture grew rapidly, I was absorbed in it, lived for it, and had that strange peace and glowing content that Art bestows, and which like that other peace "pa.s.seth all understanding."

Then gradually a sense of unrest mingled with the calm. The whole afternoon while Viola was with me I worked happily, content to the point of being absolutely oblivious of everything except ourselves and the picture. Our tea together afterwards, when we discussed the progress made and the colour effects, was a delight. But the moment the door was closed after her, when she had left me, a blank seemed to spread round me. The picture itself could not console me. I gazed and gazed at it, but the gaze did not satisfy me nor soothe the feverish unrest. I longed for her presence beside me again.

One day after the posing she seemed so tired and exhausted that I begged her to lie down a little and drew up my great comfortable couch, like a Turkish divan, to the fire. She did as she was bid, and I heaped up a pile of blue cushions behind her fair head.

"I am so tired," she exclaimed and let her eyes close and her arms fall beside her.

I stood looking down on her. Her face was sh.e.l.l-like in its clear fairness and transparency, and the beautiful expressive eyebrows drawn delicately on the white forehead appealed to me.

The intimacy established between us, her complete willing sacrifice to me, her surrender, her trust in me, the knowledge of herself and her beauty she had allowed me gave birth suddenly in my heart to a great overwhelming tenderness and a necessity for its expression.

I bent over her, pressed my lips down on hers and held them there. She did not open her eyes, but raised her arms and put them round my neck, pressing me to her. In a joyous wave of emotion I threw myself beside her and drew the slender, supple figure into my arms.

"Trevor," she murmured, as soon as I would let her, "I am afraid you are falling in love with me."

"I have already," I answered. "I love you, I want for my own. You must marry me, and come and live at the studio."

"I don't think I can marry you," she replied in very soft tones, but she did not try to move from my clasp.

"Why not?"

"Artists should not marry: it prevents their development. How old are you?"

"Twenty-eight," I answered, half-submerged in the delight of the contact with her, of knowing her in my arms, hardly willing or able to listen to what she said.

"And how many women have you loved?"

"Oh, I don't know," I answered. "I have been with lots, of course, but I don't think I have ever loved at all till now."

"What about the little girl in the tea-shop at Sitka?"

"I don't think I loved her. I wanted her as an experience."

"Is it not just the same with me?"

"No, it isn't. It's quite different. Do not worry me with questions, Viola. Kiss me and tell me you love me."

She raised herself suddenly on one elbow and leant over me, kissing me on the eyes and lips, all over my face, with pa.s.sionate intensity.

"I do love you. You are like my life to me, but I know I ought not to marry you. I should absorb you. You would love me. You would not want to be unfaithful to me. But fidelity to one person is madness an impossibility to an artist if he is to reach his highest development.

It can't be. We must not think of it."