You got ways put me
mightily in mind o' Abner." The old eyes were very sweet, and a
wintry rose crept into her withered cheek. She added: "I know what's
ailin' _you_, young man! Lord knows I hope you'll be happy as Abner
and me was!"
He went back to his room and communed with his picture. It was the
sort that, if you stayed with it a little while, _liked_ to commune
with you. It would divine your mood, and the eyes followed you with
an uncanny understanding, the smile said more than any words could
say. You almost saw her eyelids move, her breast rise and fall to
her breathing. The man trembled before his masterpiece.
His heart swelled. He exulted in his genius, a high gift to be laid
at the feet of the beloved. All he had, all he could ever be,
belonged to her. She had called forth his best. He said to her
painted semblance:
"You are my first love-gift. I am going to send you to her, and
she'll know she hasn't given her love, her beauty, her youth, to an
unworthy or an obscure lover. She's given herself to me, Peter
Champneys, and because she loves me I'll give her a name she can
wear like a crown: I'll set her upon the purple heights!"
She was at the far end of the Thatcher garden, behind the house and
hidden from it, when he arrived with the canvas, which he hadn't
dared entrust to any other carrier--he was too jealously careful of
it.
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