"One might be painted while one is asleep," suggested Mr. Brand, as a contribution to the discussion.
"Ah, do paint me while I am asleep," said Gertrude to Felix, smiling.
And she closed her eyes a little. It had by this time become a matter of almost exciting anxiety to Charlotte what Gertrude would say or would do next.
She began to sit for her portrait on the following day--in the open air, on the north side of the piazza. "I wish you would tell me what you think of us--how we seem to you," she said to Felix, as he sat before his easel.
"You seem to me the best people in the world," said Felix.
"You say that," Gertrude resumed, "because it saves you the trouble of saying anything else."
The young man glanced at her over the top of his canvas.
"What else should I say? It would certainly be a great deal of trouble to say anything different."
"Well," said Gertrude, "you have seen people before that you have liked, have you not?"
"Indeed I have, thank Heaven!"
"And they have been very different from us," Gertrude went on.
"That only proves," said Felix, "that there are a thousand different ways of being good company."
"Do you think us good company?" asked Gertrude.
"Company for a king!"
Gertrude was silent a moment; and then, "There must be a thousand different ways of being dreary," she said; "and sometimes I think we make use of them all."
Felix stood up quickly, holding up his hand. "If you could only keep that look on your face for half an hour--while I catch it!" he said.
"It is uncommonly handsome."
"To look handsome for half an hour--that is a great deal to ask of me," she answered.
"It would be the portrait of a young woman who has taken some vow, some pledge, that she repents of," said Felix, "and who is thinking it over at leisure."
"I have taken no vow, no pledge," said Gertrude, very gravely;
"I have nothing to repent of."
"My dear cousin, that was only a figure of speech.
I am very sure that no one in your excellent family has anything to repent of."
"And yet we are always repenting!" Gertrude exclaimed.
"That is what I mean by our being dreary. You know it perfectly well; you only pretend that you don't."
Felix gave a quick laugh. "The half hour is going on, and yet you are handsomer than ever. One must be careful what one says, you see."
"To me," said Gertrude, "you can say anything."
Felix looked at her, as an artist might, and painted for some time in silence.
"Yes, you seem to me different from your father and sister--from most of the people you have lived with," he observed.
"To say that one's self," Gertrude went on, "is like saying--by implication, at least--that one is better. I am not better;
I am much worse. But they say themselves that I am different.
It makes them unhappy."
"Since you accuse me of concealing my real impressions, I may admit that I think the tendency--among you generally--is to be made unhappy too easily."
"I wish you would tell that to my father," said Gertrude.
"It might make him more unhappy!" Felix exclaimed, laughing.
"It certainly would. I don't believe you have seen people like that."
"Ah, my dear cousin, how do you know what I have seen?" Felix demanded.
"How can I tell you?"
"You might tell me a great many things, if you only would. You have seen people like yourself--people who are bright and gay and fond of amusement.
We are not fond of amusement."
"Yes," said Felix, "I confess that rather strikes me.
You don't seem to me to get all the pleasure out of life that you might. You don't seem to me to enjoy..... Do you mind my saying this?" he asked, pausing.
"Please go on," said the girl, earnestly.
"You seem to me very well placed for enjoying. You have money and liberty and what is called in Europe a 'position.'
But you take a painful view of life, as one may say."
"One ought to think it bright and charming and delightful, eh?" asked Gertrude.
"I should say so--if one can. It is true it all depends upon that," Felix added.
"You know there is a great deal of misery in the world," said his model.
"I have seen a little of it," the young man rejoined.
"But it was all over there--beyond the sea. I don't see any here.
This is a paradise."
Gertrude said nothing; she sat looking at the dahlias and the currant-bushes in the garden, while Felix went on with his work.
"To 'enjoy,' " she began at last, "to take life--not painfully, must one do something wrong?"
Felix gave his long, light laugh again. "Seriously, I think not.
And for this reason, among others: you strike me as very capable of enjoying, if the chance were given you, and yet at the same time as incapable of wrong-doing."
"I am sure," said Gertrude, "that you are very wrong in telling a person that she is incapable of that.
We are never nearer to evil than when we believe that."
"You are handsomer than ever," observed Felix, irrelevantly.
Gertrude had got used to hearing him say this.
There was not so much excitement in it as at first.
"What ought one to do?" she continued. "To give parties, to go to the theatre, to read novels, to keep late hours?"
"I don't think it 's what one does or one does n't do that promotes enjoyment," her companion answered.
"It is the general way of looking at life."
"They look at it as a discipline--that 's what they do here.
I have often been told that."
"Well, that 's very good. But there is another way," added Felix, smiling:
"to look at it as an opportunity."
"An opportunity--yes," said Gertrude. "One would get more pleasure that way."
"I don't attempt to say anything better for it than that it has been my own way--and that is not saying much!"
Felix had laid down his palette and brushes; he was leaning back, with his arms folded, to judge the effect of his work.
"And you know," he said, "I am a very petty personage."
"You have a great deal of talent," said Gertrude.
"No--no," the young man rejoined, in a tone of cheerful impartiality, "I have not a great deal of talent. It is nothing at all remarkable.
I assure you I should know if it were. I shall always be obscure.