"It is beautiful!" said Lady Hermione, with enthusiasm. "Beautiful! Is
it at all like me?"
Paul looked from her to the picture, and back to her again.
"No," he said. "Not a bit. You know, I am really a landscape painter."
"What do you mean?" she cried. "You are Peter Samways, A.R.A., the
famous portrait painter!"
"No," he said sadly. "That was my secret. I am Paul Samways. A member of
the Amateur Rowing Association, it is true, but only an unknown
landscape painter. Peter Samways lives in the next studio, and he is not
even a relation."
"Then you have deceived me! You have brought me here under false
pretences!" She stamped her foot angrily. "My father will not buy that
picture, and I forbid you to exhibit it as a portrait of myself."
"My dear Lady Hermione," said Paul, "you need not be alarmed. I propose
to exhibit the picture as 'When the Heart is Young.' Nobody will
recognise a likeness to you in it. And if the Duke does not buy it I
have no doubt that some other purchaser will come along."
Lady Hermione looked at him thoughtfully. "Why did you do it?" she asked
gently.
"Because I fell in love with you."
She dropped her eyes, and then raised them gaily to his. "Mother is
still asleep," she whispered.
"Hermione!" he cried, dropping his palette and putting his brush behind
his ear.
She held out her arms to him.
* * * * *
As everybody remembers, "When the Heart is Young," by Paul Samways, was
the feature of the Exhibition. It was bought for £10,000 by a retired
bottle-manufacturer, whom it reminded a little of his late mother. Paul
woke to find himself famous. But the success which began for him from
this day did not spoil his simple and generous nature. He never forgot
his brother artists, whose feet were not yet on the top of the ladder.
Indeed one of his first acts after he was married was to give a
commission to Peter Samways, A.R.A.--nothing less than the painting of
his wife's portrait. And Lady Hermione was delighted with the result.
XLVIII. THE BARRISTER
The New Bailey was crowded with a gay and fashionable throng. It was a
remarkable case of shop-lifting. Aurora Delaine, 19, was charged with
feloniously stealing and conveying certain articles the property of the
Universal Stores, to wit, thirty-five yards of book muslin, ten pairs of
gloves, a sponge, two gimlets, five jars of cold cream, a copy of the
Clergy List, three hat-guards, a mariner's compass, a box of
drawing-pins, an egg-breaker, six blouses, and a cabman's whistle. The
theft had been proved by Albert Jobson, a shopwalker, who gave evidence
to the effect that he followed her through the different departments and
saw her take the things mentioned in the indictment.
"Just a moment," interrupted the Judge. "Who is defending the prisoner?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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