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The Painter
by
The sittings went on daily. Sometimes Paul would paint rapidly with great sweeps of the brush; sometimes he would spend an hour trying to get on his palette the exact shade of green bice for the famous Winchester emeralds; sometimes in despair he would take a sponge and wipe the whole picture out, and then start madly again. And sometimes he would stop work altogether and tell Lady Hermione about his home-life in Worcestershire. But always, when he woke the Duchess up at the end of the sitting, he would say, “Remember!” and Lady Hermione would nod back at him.
It was a spring-like day in March when the picture was finished, and nothing remained to do but to paint in the signature.
“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 recognize 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 pounds 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.