Confidence. Генри Джеймс

dropped an eye on the sketch again.

      “Is your picture so good as that?” she asked.

      “I have a great deal of talent,” he answered, laughing. “You shall see for yourself, when it is finished.”

      She turned slowly toward the terrace again.

      “You certainly have a great deal of talent, to induce me to do what you ask.” And she walked to where she had stood before. Longueville made a movement to go with her, as if to show her the attitude he meant; but, pointing with decision to his easel, she said—

      “You have only five minutes.” He immediately went back to his work, and she made a vague attempt to take up her position. “You must tell me if this will do,” she added, in a moment.

      “It will do beautifully,” Longueville answered, in a happy tone, looking at her and plying his brush. “It is immensely good of you to take so much trouble.”

      For a moment she made no rejoinder, but presently she said—

      “Of course if I pose at all I wish to pose well.”

      “You pose admirably,” said Longueville.

      After this she said nothing, and for several minutes he painted rapidly and in silence. He felt a certain excitement, and the movement of his thoughts kept pace with that of his brush. It was very true that she posed admirably; she was a fine creature to paint. Her prettiness inspired him, and also her audacity, as he was content to regard it for the moment. He wondered about her—who she was, and what she was—perceiving that the so-called audacity was not vulgar boldness, but the play of an original and probably interesting character. It was obvious that she was a perfect lady, but it was equally obvious that she was irregularly clever. Longueville’s little figure was a success—a charming success, he thought, as he put on the last touches. While he was doing this, his model’s companion came into view. She came out of the church, pausing a moment as she looked from her daughter to the young man in the corner of the terrace; then she walked straight over to the young girl. She was a delicate little gentlewoman, with a light, quick step.

      Longueville’s five minutes were up; so, leaving his place, he approached the two ladies, sketch in hand. The elder one, who had passed her hand into her daughter’s arm, looked up at him with clear, surprised eyes; she was a charming old woman. Her eyes were very pretty, and on either side of them, above a pair of fine dark brows, was a band of silvery hair, rather coquettishly arranged.

      “It is my portrait,” said her daughter, as Longueville drew near. “This gentleman has been sketching me.”

      “Sketching you, dearest?” murmured her mother. “Was n’t it rather sudden?”

      “Very sudden—very abrupt!” exclaimed the young girl with a laugh.

      “Considering all that, it ‘s very good,” said Longueville, offering his picture to the elder lady, who took it and began to examine it. “I can’t tell you how much I thank you,” he said to his model.

      “It ‘s very well for you to thank me now,” she replied. “You really had no right to begin.”

      “The temptation was so great.”

      “We should resist temptation. And you should have asked my leave.”

      “I was afraid you would refuse it; and you stood there, just in my line of vision.”

      “You should have asked me to get out of it.”

      “I should have been very sorry. Besides, it would have been extremely rude.”

      The young girl looked at him a moment.

      “Yes, I think it would. But what you have done is ruder.”

      “It is a hard case!” said Longueville. “What could I have done, then, decently?”

      “It ‘s a beautiful drawing,” murmured the elder lady, handing the thing back to Longueville. Her daughter, meanwhile, had not even glanced at it.

      “You might have waited till I should go away,” this argumentative young person continued.

      Longueville shook his head.

      “I never lose opportunities!”

      “You might have sketched me afterwards, from memory.”

      Longueville looked at her, smiling.

      “Judge how much better my memory will be now!”

      She also smiled a little, but instantly became serious.

      “For myself, it ‘s an episode I shall try to forget. I don’t like the part I have played in it.”

      “May you never play a less becoming one!” cried Longueville. “I hope that your mother, at least, will accept a memento of the occasion.” And he turned again with his sketch to her companion, who had been listening to the girl’s conversation with this enterprising stranger, and looking from one to the other with an air of earnest confusion. “Won’t you do me the honor of keeping my sketch?” he said. “I think it really looks like your daughter.”

      “Oh, thank you, thank you; I hardly dare,” murmured the lady, with a deprecating gesture.

      “It will serve as a kind of amends for the liberty I have taken,” Longueville added; and he began to remove the drawing from its paper block.

      “It makes it worse for you to give it to us,” said the young girl.

      “Oh, my dear, I am sure it ‘s lovely!” exclaimed her mother. “It ‘s wonderfully like you.”

      “I think that also makes it worse!”

      Longueville was at last nettled. The young lady’s perversity was perhaps not exactly malignant; but it was certainly ungracious. She seemed to desire to present herself as a beautiful tormentress.

      “How does it make it worse?” he asked, with a frown.

      He believed she was clever, and she was certainly ready. Now, however, she reflected a moment before answering.

      “That you should give us your sketch,” she said at last.

      “It was to your mother I offered it,” Longueville observed.

      But this observation, the fruit of his irritation, appeared to have no effect upon the young girl.

      “Is n’t it what painters call a study?” she went on. “A study is of use to the painter himself. Your justification would be that you should keep your sketch, and that it might be of use to you.”

      “My daughter is a study, sir, you will say,” said the elder lady in a little, light, conciliating voice, and graciously accepting the drawing again.

      “I will admit,” said Longueville, “that I am very inconsistent. Set it down to my esteem, madam,” he added, looking at the mother.

      “That ‘s for you, mamma,” said his model, disengaging her arm from her mother’s hand and turning away.

      The mamma stood looking at the sketch with a smile which seemed to express a tender desire to reconcile all accidents.

      “It ‘s extremely beautiful,” she murmured, “and if you insist on my taking it—”

      “I shall regard it as a great honor.”

      “Very well, then; with many thanks, I will keep it.” She looked at the young man a moment, while her daughter walked away. Longueville thought her a delightful little person; she struck him as a sort of transfigured Quakeress—a mystic with a practical side. “I am sure you think she ‘s a strange girl,” she said.

      “She is extremely pretty.”

      “She is very clever,” said the mother.

      “She