there comes a day in the lives of some of us when everything appears as if it were pursuing its
ordinary and normal course. we get up in the morning and go through the usual routine—bath, dressing,
breakfast, all the little accustomed trivialities which have happened thousands of times in our lives
already, and which will doubtless happen thousands of times again. we feel gay or dull as we have felt
thousands of times before, and we think, or we don’t think, of the various occupations that will go
to make up our day, and we never guess that before sunset we shall have our hand on a door—a door
that when opened is to lead the way into clouds of sorrow, or gild our life suddenly with the radiant
light of joy. so silently do the fates work, so secret do they keep their intentions from us.
paul got up that morning as usual at seven o’clock. he had his usual cold bath, which most people
would have found uncomfortably chilly on a november morning, but in which paul found merely a
refreshing sting. he rubbed himself dry while humming an air from “the arcadians,” and then put on
his clothes. he went into his studio and found his usual breakfast of coffee and rolls ready for him.
while he ate it he looked into a neat brown pocket-book to refresh his memory as to his engagements
for the day.
a small girl was coming to sit for him at ten o’clock. her name was marjorie arnold. she was
possessed of personality and a fascinating dimple. he had caught the personality, but the dimple had
hitherto eluded him. it was extremely fleeting in its appearance. he hoped to catch it and place it on
canvas that morning.
there was only one other entry for the day—“4.15. c.c.” it meant that christopher charlton was
coming for him that afternoon, and would take him to call on the duchessa di corleone, who desired to
have her portrait painted.
he felt a certain amount of interest as to the duchessa’s appearance, but it was only an interest he
had felt dozens of times before concerning possible commissions. christopher had said she was good-
looking. so were a good many people who were no use to paul as subjects. he painted only those who
interested him. from the others—and there were many—he politely evaded accepting commissions. he was
very much an artist, was paul. and for this reason partly his income was considerably below the amount
his genius warranted. the other reason was that there were [pg 106]many people who did not consider
his portraits to be likenesses.
at ten o’clock the child appeared with the nurse, who was dismissed for a couple of hours, and armed
with brushes and palette paul set to work to catch the fleeting dimple.
the child—she was five years old—was in a solemn mood. smiles, and with them the dimple, had
temporarily vanished. she was a quaint little thing with red hair and freckles, and a fascinating
ugliness generally termed the beauté de diable.
paul told her half a dozen stories, including “the three bears”, “the frog prince”, and rudyard
kipling’s “stute little fish.” but neither the squeakiness of the little bear, the faithlessness of
the princess, nor the sufferings of the whale when the shipwrecked mariner danced hornpipes in his
inside had any effect on the dimple.
“suppose,” said paul at last, “that you tell me a story.”
the face was even more solemn.
“i don’t know one.”
“make up one,” suggested paul.
there was the ghost of a smile, then solemnity. the flash of hope paul had experienced died away.
“onst upon a time,” she began gravely, “vere was a little dog an’ a little duck. an’ vey grewed
wings, an’ vey flewed up an’ up an’ up to heaven to god.”
there was a pause for effect.
“what a height,” said paul admiringly, watching her face. “what happened next?”
“when vey got vere,” went on the voice solemnly, “you bet vey wanted to see round. but god said, ‘
not to-day, i guess i’m busy. it’s my last day up here.’ it was. ’cos ve next day—god died. isn’
t vat a nice story?”
no trace of a dimple. paul was exasperated.
“not a bit a nice story,” he said sternly. “and god couldn’t die.”
she put her head on one side and looked at him.
“well, not weally, of course. but ve little dog an’ ve little duck had never seen anybody die, an’
vey wanted to. so god showed them.” she was laughing at him now in childish triumph, a very imp of
mischief.
“eureka!” cried paul. and his brush flew to the canvas. such are the trials and triumphs of portrait
painters.
“come and look at it,” said paul after ten minutes.
she scrambled down from the chair and platform and came round. a small mocking face of pure wickedness
looked at her from the canvas. her own.
“do you see it?” said paul, pointing at it with his brush. “and but for your profane little story
there would never have been exactly that expression on your face. we wait for our moments, we artists,
and we catch them—sometimes. and now,” he continued, “you can have a stick of chocolate and brown
your face up to the eyebrows with it. i have finished your portrait, and therefore done with you. i
don’t care what happens to you now."
that was paul. during the time of painting he sought for intimate knowledge of his subjects. every
tiniest characteristic, every fleeting expression, were noted and stored up in his memory. he could
almost have told you their life history from his minute observation of faces. he knew his subjects as
few of their intimate friends knew them. he guessed their hidden secrets with a power that was almost
uncanny—secrets known only to their own souls—and put the secrets on his canvas. and it was for this
reason that many people did not consider the portraits to be likenesses. he painted the real person,
not merely the mask they wore to the world at large.
this fact had been particularly emphasized in his portrait of a certain statesman—one lord st. aubyn.
the statesman has nothing to do with the rest of this story, but the incident as far as paul is
concerned is interesting.
st. aubyn was a man who was much before the public, and no less than five portraits of him had been
commissioned by different societies as a token of their personal gratitude. four of these, but for the
individuality of technique, might have been replicas [pg 109]one of the other, and gave instant
satisfaction alike to donors and public.
they showed a man with regular features and deep-set eyes, leaning to the accepted military type, a
resolute mouth, and a certain air of distinction and command. one felt that a sculptor of the
“classic convention” would have expressed the type even more admirably. reserve was there, but with
no hint of mystery or evasion; intellectuality, but little imagination.
the fifth portrait by paul was, one would have said, of another man. it was a picture that seemed
alive with a strange and slightly repellent magnetism, for the eyes smiled at a stranger with a
baffling mockery; they seemed to invite and yet defy his judgment—to taunt him with his impotence and
read the soul behind them.
it had been received on exhibition with a storm of outspoken criticism; while the benevolent trustees
who had commissioned it, though refraining from audible dissatisfaction, had maintained so eloquent a
silence at their private view, glancing at each other with liftings of eyebrows and pursing of lips,
that paul had flung round upon them and relieved their embarrassment by declaring the contract to be
null and void. no reasons were asked for or given; the action was taken as a tacit admission of
failure. yet paul himself had seemed not ill-satisfied, and had met the chaff which had [pg 110]
greeted him from many of his circle with equanimity.
landor, one of the circle, whose portrait of st. aubyn in the previous academy had been hailed as a
most masterly piece of work, had ventured a serious protest.
“my dear fellow,” he had said one evening, “you’re letting your imagination play tricks with you.
it’s becoming an absolute disease. i made a most careful study of the man—made him give me
innumerable sittings, and i pledge you my word that i put everything into the face that i could find.
you had three sittings, and god only knows what you’ve put there.”
paul had smoked for a few moments in silence.
“perhaps you’ve hit it,” he had said. “i’ve nothing to say against your ‘portrait of a rising
statesman.’ it’s a fine piece of work. but you know all about the factories sanitation amendment
act, and i can read sub-section ten in your handling of the chin. now i don’t read the papers, and i
know nothing of the man. i tried to get at him and he shut the door in my face. yet something came
through the keyhole and the cracks by the hinges, and i have painted that. and, as you say, god only
knows what i’ve put in his face; i don’t. and in spite of that—or perhaps because of it—what i’ve
put there happens to be the truth.”
“but what have you done with the picture?” landor had asked. “the benevolent refused it, didn’t
they?”
“now you’re getting coarse,” had been paul’s reply. “we agreed to differ as to its suitability.”
“then where is it?”
“in st. aubyn’s study, i believe,” had been the careless reply.
“he bought it, then?”
“i gave it to him.”
landor had looked at paul, and had refrained from putting further questions. there had been an
expression in paul’s face which might have made them appear an impertinence.
the gift of the picture had come about in rather a curious way.
paul never let his sitters see unfinished work, and st. aubyn had left town immediately after the
third sitting, and had not returned till the exhibition was over. then he had gone to paul’s studio
and had seen the picture. he had made one remark, but that was eloquent.
“how did you find out?” he had said.
paul had looked at him, and the next moment the mask had been on again, and he had been talking
business.
“you’ve sold this portrait, haven’t you?” he had asked.
“unfortunately not,” paul had replied. “it [pg 112]seems to give offence to your numerous admirers.
”
“then, if you will allow me, i should like to become the purchaser,” had been the reply.
paul had looked at him.
“it’s not for sale,” he had said.
st. aubyn had bowed and taken up his hat without so much as looking disappointed.
“but i’ll send it round to your house to-morrow,” paul had said.
st. aubyn had refused. he had talked polite platitudes regarding the value of the work.
“now you’re talking stock exchange,” paul had told him. “the latest marked quotation is absolutely
nil. no one will look at it. as a piece of property it is worthless. as a revelation——” he had
stopped.
st. aubyn had smiled. “i deal in revelations—professionally,” he said.
that had told paul the secret he had already guessed.
“what a head-line for the evening papers,” he had said whimsically. “‘a peer’s secret! threatened
exposure by eminent artist!’ but i’m not a blackmailer, and i don’t take hush-money. the picture is
yours or no one’s.”
they had argued a little more. at last st. aubyn had taken it.
“and about the inscription?” it had been paul’s parting shot. “from a painter to a——?”
st. aubyn had shaken his head.
“experience is against endorsements, however cryptic, on secret documents,” he had said. “sooner or
later the cipher is sure to be read.”
and he had gone away, leaving paul the sole possessor of his secret, a secret which paul had summed up
in one brief sentence addressed to a chinese idol on his mantelpiece.
“the man, god help him, is a poet.”
a month later he had received a small volume of poems addressed in a hand in which he had already
received three short notes agreeing to sittings. the verses—true poetry—were written under a nom de
plume. what st. aubyn’s reason was for keeping his poetical talent a secret from the world paul never
knew. the volume came to him in silence from the author; he respected the silence, attempting no word
of thanks. and the secret his insight had wrested from the man went with other secrets somewhere away
in the hidden recesses of his mind, while his work alone absorbed him.
he never pursued his knowledge of men and women further. it sufficed—or seemed to suffice him—to
portray that knowledge on canvas, and leave it for those to read who had the heart to do so. as he had
passed before among men and women of varied nationalities, making no real friends, so he passed now
among varied types, noting them, painting them, and dismissing them, still making no friend. the
lonely reserve he had gained in his wanderings pursued him now. he could not throw it off. barnabas
and dan were nearer true friendship with him than any, and more because they had silently accepted him
for their friend than from any advance on his part. it seemed that he could make none. the solitude of
the plains, the loneliness of big spaces, seemed to have claimed his spirit.
and so he painted portraits, from statesmen to small girls, gaining intimate knowledge of them, while
no one yet had learnt to know the real paul.
it was very much later in the day, long after marjorie had departed led by an indignant nurse
muttering to herself regarding the carelessness of “them artists,” for not only marjorie’s face,
but her best white dress was covered with various smears of brown chocolate—it was long after this
that paul looked once more at his pocket-book. he looked at it to make sure that the hour christopher
would arrive for him was four-fifteen, and not four o’clock. the former was there plainly inscribed,
written by paul with a small gold pencil.
there were just two entries for that day—friday, november 27th, “m.a. 10 o’clock” and “4.15
o’clock. c.c.” little did paul think as he looked at it that he would treasure that small page as
one would treasure one’s passage to heaven.
christopher arrived at the studio punctually to the second, and found paul ready for him. the [pg
115]two turned into oakley street and came down towards the embankment. it was already past sunset,
and the houses and river were shrouded in a soft mist. they reached the house near swan walk and went
up the steps.
“the duchessa di corleone at home?” asked christopher of the footman who opened the door.
“will you come this way, sir,” was the answer, and he led them up the wide shallow stairs. he threw
open a door.
paul saw a room of pale lavenders, with the chrysanthemums like patches of sunlight. a woman rose from
a chair by the fire and came forward to greet them. the window was behind her as she came forward, and
the room being in twilight he could not see her face distinctly, but he saw the outlines of her
graceful figure, and caught the glint of her red-brown hair.
she held out her hand.
“it is very charming of you to come and see me, mr. treherne,” she said. “pietro, the lights.”
paul heard the sound of three or four tiny clickings near the door, and the room became full of a soft
mellow light. had the light been a trifle brighter, or her voice a shade less natural, the whole thing
might have verged on the theatrical. as it was, it was simply a revelation to paul as, for the first
time, he saw the duchessa di corleone.
she stood before him smiling—a smile that just lit up her eyes and trembled on her mouth. he [pg
116]saw that her skin was smooth like ivory, that her lips were crimson like wine beneath oiled silk,
that her hair was the colour of a chestnut newly wrested from its sheath.
all this paul saw almost without realizing it. for suddenly his heart heard a tune—one that is played
silently throughout the ages, and to most of us the hearing of the tune comes slowly and gradually, a
note at a time. but to a few—as to paul—it comes suddenly, played in full melody. he felt vaguely
that he had been waiting for that tune all his life, listening for it on the plains, in the silence of
the night under the stars.
but he merely bowed and said in the most ordinary and conventional voice in the world:
“it was very good of you to ask me to come and see you.”
for paul did not yet know the meaning of the tune. in his lonely life he had never before even heard
an imitation of it. and because the music was very strange and very beautiful he listened to it with
something like awe.
and then he heard christopher’s voice.
“i ought to have told you, sara, that mr. treherne is an artist of strange moods, and that sometimes
he refuses—in the most polite and diplomatic way, of course—to accept commissions.”
the duchessa looked at paul.
“i don’t think mr. treherne will refuse to paint my portrait. at least i hope not.”
“i shall be honoured to paint it,” paul replied.
the words were conventional. since he intended to accept the commission it was very nearly the only
phrase he could have used, yet there was something in his utterance of the words that seemed just to
lift them from the commonplace. perhaps it was the direct way in which he spoke them. paul had
generally a very direct manner of speech.
anyhow, sara glanced at him, and an indefinable something in his eyes caused an odd little movement in
her heart. the room in which they were sitting seemed suddenly brighter, the chrysanthemums a more
beautiful colour, the logs on the fire more than usually crackly and pleasant. for so it is that two
people who are complete strangers to each other sometimes meet and in some subtle way, and without
realizing it at the time, the whole world has altered for them. and the invisible gods laughed softly,
and the grim old fates smiled, and drew two threads of their weaving, which had hitherto had nothing
to do with each other, a little closer together.
before paul left the house on the embankment it was arranged that the duchessa should come to his
studio the following morning at eleven o’clock for her first sitting.
