University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.

Paul's labor upon the portrait he had been ready to
abandon, was by no means lost. His obstinate industry
for three days had supplied the correctness and relativeness
of proportion without which the most inspired picture
would be incomplete. He did not propose to change the
position of the figure or the aspect of the head and features.
The upturned face, which he had seen in the mirror,
though it might have formed a beautiful conception for a
St. Cecilia, would have seemed affected, to English eyes,
as a literal portrait. But, at the same time that the outline,
and the posture, and the features, were to be the
same, it was a wholly different chronicle of a life which
was now to be embodied in the expression—a wholly different
character, of which the self-same lineaments were to
be the presence and language.

And Paul's haunting phantom was forgotten as he pursued
his task on this fourth morning. Yet he might well
have remembered it, but for his knowledge of a look

deeper than the exterior features from which he drew.
Miss Ashly had been interrupted at her impassioned music
—called away from the happiness of a pleasanter world—
for the business of this reluctant hour; and the cold grey
eye, if he had stopped at its forbidding and outer threshold
of expression, would have, more than before, seemed to
shrink from his companionship. But, in the far-reaching
enthusiasm with which he struggled to bring to light the
once-seen beauty beyond, he forgot the pride that was
nearer; and what that deeper nature's estimate of his own
quality of clay might be, was a question left unasked, and
unthought of, by his present glowing imagination.

But, of some difference in the manners, or at least, in
the presence or magnetism of the artist himself, Miss
Ashly, in her turn, began slowly to be aware. His gaze
had no longer the scrutiny from which she shrank—his
eye, somehow, was within the door which she had hitherto
locked against its intrusion. The feeling of resistance to
his long-continued and steadily-bent looks upon her features—a
feeling of which she had been so unpleasantly
conscious, that the repeated sittings for her portrait seemed
greater and greater penances, which only her love for her
nephew could make endurable—was entirely removed. It
affected even her posture, as the hour went on. She
turned more unconstrainedly to the light, and her features
relaxed, at the same time, into the repose of complete self-forgetfulness.

With the first absolutely willing smile
which he had seen upon her face since the sittings began,
she spoke, as the clock on the mantelpiece struck for
noon.

“Wooing a likeness, I suppose, Mr. Evenden,” she said,
“is like other wooing; the willingness grows upon one.
You may continue your work, if you find yourself in the
vein. I am not tired.”

“Thanks to both the Misses Ashly,” replied Paul, bowing
ceremoniously as if to two persons; “though it is not
often that the slighted lady gives way with so good a grace
to her rival!”

His sitter seemed mystified, but waited silently, with a
very confiding look of inquiry, for an explanation.”

“I fear I shall scarce make you understand,” continued
Paul, “that I was mistakenly employed for three days
upon the portrait of another Miss Ashly—one, at least, with
a very different face, from this now upon my easel. It was
only to-day that I chanced to see, for the first time, the
countenance of her on whose portrait I am so much more
likely to be successful. And, to my great satisfaction, I
find, by the just-expressed willingness to prolong the
sitting, that the more coy lady is content to have been
discovered, and better pleased than the other to be the
subject of a picture.”

“And the plain prose of which is, I suppose, that you

have seen, to-day, an expression you had not seen before.
I fear” (she continued, evidently feeling a little uneasy as
she thought about it) “that the compliment of your
thinking better of me upon acquaintance is outweighed by
the inference as to my general look and manners.”

Paul balanced, in his mind, for a moment, whether he
was well acquainted enough, yet, with the lady, to make
a frank avowal of his first impression—tempting as was
the opportunity it might give for a question as to the Ashly
look. But he deferred it.

“Why, I suppose,” he said, evading the personality by a
general remark, “that, to every character of any depth or
variety, there is an inner as well as an outer nature—the
character being none the less estimable because these are
apparently very different. Probably it is an accident of
education or circumstances, which of the two puts its
stamp upon the features and manners.”

“But still,” she said, “there would surely be more
dignity in an exterior that was a frank and full expression
of the whole character.”

“That would be true,” said Paul, continuing to apologize
to her for herself, “if the bad world we live in gave a
frank and full response to this whole expression. But, of
our gold, silver, and copper, the baser coin is sometimes
the most current and acceptable; and, with finding that
our more precious qualities are only wasted or undervalued,

we soon begin to hoard them away and show no sign of
possessing them.”

“Yet it seems a pity,” she suggested, “that, in consequence
of such concealment, two who are really congenial
should meet without mutual recognition, or, even that a
single person should go unappreciated through life, simply
because the manners give no clue to the character.”

“Why, chance (as we have found to-day) may reveal
the secret,” he argued, “even if to the quicker sense that
could best appreciate it, there be no betrayal of the hidden
nature, by sympathy or physiognomy. And what a luxury,
after all, to have an inner character, for those who are intimate
with us, of which the world knows nothing! How
delightful to have even different looks and manners for the
few by whom we are understood or the one to whom the
heart is given!”

“And, when portrayed, it should certainly be by one
who can get at that same inner likeness,” she added,
smiling on Paul very genially, “though, by the way, as I
have not seen your work of this morning, I do not know
whether my own inner countenance, as you are pleased to
consider it, is preferable to the outer and usual one. We
might easily differ, in our opinion of it, though I suppose
you will scarce allow my judgment, even of my own face,
to be more correct than yours, who have studied it so
much.”

“No,” said Paul, “for, curiously enough, we are better
judges of any face than of our own. There are few things
people are more mistaken about than the impression their
faces make on others. Of the fidelity of the likeness you
would be better able to decide, however; for there is a
certain feel, independent of the eye, which infallibly recognises
resemblance. When you look on your own portrait,
you know whether you were ever conscious of what is
there portrayed. But this does not decide the choice
between the becomingness of different expressions which
are equally true, nor between the comparative desirableness
of the inner and outer countenances of which we were
speaking. And it is this defective memory of our own
looks (a man `straightway forgetting what manner of man
he is,' as the Bible says) which makes it so dependent on
chance circumstances, as I said before, whether or not the
story of an inner and better self is told in the features.
We are unaware of the gradual formation of our habitual
expression of face (none except very artful persons ever
making it a study or materially controlling it, I fancy), and
so, though involuntary, it is rather a chronicle of what
influences we have been subjected to than of our true
character. But,” added Paul, rising from his work and
setting back his easel, “it is time to come to the `improvement'
of my long sermon. Let me introduce you to yourself!
This unfinished sketch (and I shall require a sitting

or two more to complete it, I believe) will represent you—
if not truly—at least as reflected in the mirror of my
present eyes!”

Miss Ashly looked silently on the sketch, while Paul
busied himself with laying away his materials for the day.
It was by no means a literal likeness of the lady who now
stood before it. Its wide departure from this common aim
of a portrait, impressed her, at first view, unfavorably.
But while she saw that it differed from her face as she
knew it in the glass, there was still the likeness of which
he had discoursed to her so artistically—the likeness of
what she felt to be herself—and this grew upon her as she
gazed. And it grew more and more wonderful to her how
he should have seen what was there portrayed. While
there was much that she would not have openly claimed,
in that expression—so high its order of beauty—she could
not but silently acknowledge it to be herself. It was the
face of an imaginative, sensitive, pure, and proud woman—
the pride so spiritualized and ennobled that it seemed like
a grace—and she could not but see, also, that, with all its
resemblance to what she felt true, as to ripeness of mind
and maturity, it was still glowing as with a youthfulness of
nature undiminished.

“I shall leave you alone with your other self,” said
Paul, approaching to take his leave; “for I prefer not to
hear your criticism on my sketch till you have compared

it with the original—an original which it will require solitude
to see truly. To-morrow, at the same hour, then,
shall I have the pleasure of finding you?”

She held out her hand to him with a smile instead of a
reply, and, in the cordial pressure which he received from
those delicate fingers, he found approval enough for his
picture, without words. And with the glow of successful
genius—of hard-won triumph over obstacles and embarrassments—Paul
made his way, for the first time, content,
from that place of trial, homewards, across the Arno.

It was in a long and earnest conversation, preparatory to
the next sitting, that the incident of the mirror was told—
explaining to Miss Ashly the mystery of Paul's sudden
change of conception as to her character and expression of
face; and, with some little entreaty on his part, music was
now mingled in their morning's interview, as a renewal of
his inspiration. It was indeed a renewal of it! In her
secret devotion for years to the instrument now trembling
beneath her touch, she had acquired a skill of which she
was herself scarcely conscious—playing seldom, even for
listeners of her own family, but habitually and constantly
in her own apartments when alone—and it had become,
now, by much her more fluent utterance, readier and
more confident than her voice, and linked, as to promptness
and expressiveness, with the very pulses of her brain.

She thought music! And her improvisations—or thinkings
aloud upon the piano—were of the character of
reverie, uncapricious, and of the unforced and natural
melody which is within reach of full sympathy and enjoyment
by the unscientific lover of music. To listen to her
was spirit-intercourse. The exchange of feeling and thought
seemed to be by that finer medium which angels have, better
than language.

It will be understood that this unsealing of an inner
sanctuary of thought-utterance, was more than a sacrifice
of a whim of secresy, for the better completion of a portrait.
With the constitutional reserve of Miss Ashly, the
possession of this secret accomplishment was an invisible
wall by which she was shut in from the world—by its practice,
in solitude only, as unapproachable as if encased in
crystal—and the admission of a stranger to this hidden
world was, from its very surprise and novelty, a full surrender
of confidence. Within it, her heart had not another
door! And, kept simple and unsuspicious, through
all her womanhood, as her imprisoned susceptibilities had
thus been, she was like a child let out of school, in her
frank joyousness of expansion and sympathy.

With this, and the peculiarity of Paul's nature, which
has been already explained (his disposition wholly to forget
what impression he might himself make, when once
interested to absorb the meaning or sweetness of another's

mind), it is not wonderful that friendship grew apace.
The character of Miss Ashly seemed to him a beautiful
study, of which he was making a record in her features.
He gave his whole attention to an admiring analysis and
appreciation; and, with the double charm, that, while she
opened her heart without words, in her music, he expressed
his admiration without words by his pencil. For a woman
hitherto so cold and so proud, kept, by this very pride and
coldness, unsophisticated and genuine, there was resistless
fascination in such intercourse.

But these eight or ten days of constant and confiding
intimacy had not passed without peril to Paul's incognito.
It was very evident that Miss Ashly's curiosity, as to the
history and circumstances of the young artist, increased
with her friendship for him. Conversation without restraint,
each day for hours, gave naturally many opportunities for
allusions and leading remarks, and these, with the positive
questions which good-breeding allowed from time to time,
Paul parried, of course, as he best could, but with imminent
risk of detection. “Mr. Evenden” was at last established
in her mind, however, as an artist with no distinction
beyond his pencil, and dependent wholly upon it for
future support; and, last and not least, with no engagement
to marry. And these were facts, which, with some
of his beginnings in art, he could safely disclose—the
mystification consisting more in what he concealed, and, in

the change of geography, when compelled to speak as a
countryman of her own.

With the history of the few days after the finishing of
the portrait, we will not detain the reader. Miss Ashly
made arrangements for having it retouched, before she
should take possession of it, on her return through Florence
(for she modestly insisted that he had made it much
too young for the portrait of an old maid, but Paul thought
not), and, after some delaying and deferring, she took her
departure for Rome. The following letter, which Paul
received from her, a fortnight after, will (with what we
have narrated) explain the share she had in what forms
the cobweb thread of our story—the exorcising, through
contact and more familiar knowledge, of the spell that had
seemed so formidable to Paul's self-appreciation, and which
had fortunately taken definite shape, at his first starting in
life, as the phantom of the Ashly eye.

Thus ran the letter from Rome:—