第208章

'Not more than usually tired. It is fatiguing to be slaying Sisera by the hour together. I do get to hate this block.' The block was the dummy by which the form of Sisera was supposed to be typified.

'Another sitting will about finish it,' said he, 'so that you need not positively distress yourself now. Will you rest yourself for a minute or two?' He had already perceived that the attitude in which Clara was posed before him was not one in which an offer of marriage could be received and replied to with advantage.

'Thank you, I am not tired yet,' said Clara, not changing the fixed glance of national wrath with which she regarded her wooden Sisera as she held her hammer on high.

'But I am. There; we will rest for a moment.' Dalrymple was aware that Mrs Dobbs Broughton, though she was very assiduous in piling her fagots, never piled them for long together. If he did not make haste she would be back upon them before he could get his word spoken. When he put down his brush, and got up from his chair, and stretched out his arm as a man does when he ceases for a moment from his work, Clara of course got up also, and seated herself. She was used to her turban and her drapery, and therefore thought of it not at all; and he also was used to it, seeing her in it two or three times a week; but now that he intended to accomplish a special purpose, the turban and drapery seemed to be in the way. 'I do so hope you will like the picture,' he said, as he was thinking of this.

'I don't think I shall. But you will understand that it is natural that a girl should not like herself in such a portraiture as that.'

'I don't know why. I can understand that you specially should not like the picture; but I think that most women in London in your place would at any rate say that they did.'

'Are you angry with me?'

'What; for telling the truth? No, indeed.' He was standing opposite to his easel, looking at the canvas, shifting his head about so as to change the lights, and observing critically this blemish and that; and yet he was all the while thinking how he had best carry out his purpose.

'It will have been a prosperous picture to me,' he said at last, 'if it leads to the success of which I am ambitious.'

'I am told that all you do is successful now--merely because you do it.

That is the worst of success.'

'What is the worst of success?'

'That when won by merit it leads to further success, for the gaining of which no merit is necessary.'

'It may be so in my case. If it is not, I shall have a very poor chance. Clara, I think you must know that I am not talking about my pictures.'

'I thought you were.'

'Indeed I am not. As for success in my profession, far as I am from thinking I merit it, I feel tolerably certain that I shall obtain it.'

'You have obtained it.'

'I am in the way of doing so. Perhaps one out of ten struggling artists is successful, and for him the profession is very charming. It is certainly a sad feeling that there is so much of chance in the distribution of the prizes. It is a lottery. But one cannot complain of that when one has drawn the prize.' Dalrymple was not a man without self-possession, nor was he readily abashed, but he found it easier to talk of his possession than to make his offer. The turban was his difficulty. He had told himself over and over again within the last five minutes, that he would have long since said what he had to say had it not been for that turban. He had been painting all his life from living models--from women dressed up in this or that costume, to suit the necessities of his picture--but he had never made love to any of them.

They had been simply models to him, and now he found that there was a difficulty. 'Of that prize,' he said, 'I have made myself tolerably sure; but as to the other prize, I do not know. I wonder whether I am to have that.' Of course Miss Van Siever understood well what was the prize of which he was speaking; and as she was a young woman with a will and purpose of her own, no doubt she was ready prepared with an answer. But it was necessary that the question should be put to her in properly distinct terms. Conway Dalrymple certainly had not put his question in properly distinct terms at present. She did not choose to make any answer to his last words; and therefore simply suggested that as time was pressing he had better get on with his work. 'I am quite ready now,' said she.

'Stop half a moment. How much more you are thinking of the picture than I am! I do not care twopence for the picture. I will slit the canvas from top to bottom without a groan--without a single inner groan--if you will let me.'

'For heaven's sake, do nothing of the kind! Why should you?'