Mackaye, I suppose, at first, attributed my absences and idleness to my
having got into bad company. But it was some weeks before he gently enough
told me his suspicions, and they were answered by a burst of tears, and a
passionate denial, which set them at rest forever. But I had not courage to
tell him what was the matter with me. A sacred modesty, as well as a sense
of the impossibility of explaining my emotions, held me back. I had a
half-dread, too, to confess the whole truth, of his ridiculing a fancy,
to say the least, so utterly impracticable; and my only confidant was
a picture in the National Gallery, in one of the faces of which I had
discovered some likeness to my Venus; and there I used to go and stand
at spare half hours, and feel the happier for staring and staring, and
whispering to the dead canvas the extravagances of my idolatry.
But soon the bitter draught of disappointment began to breed harsher
thoughts in me. Those fine gentlemen who rode past me in the park, who
rolled by in carriages, sitting face to face with ladies, as richly
dressed, if not as beautiful, as she was--they could see her when they
liked--why not I? What right had their eyes to a feast denied to mine?
They, too, who did not appreciate, adore that beauty as I did--for who
could worship her like me? At least they had not suffered for her as I
had done; they had not stood in rain and frost, fatigue, and blank
despair--watching--watching--month after month; and I was making coats for
them! The very garment I was stitching at, might, in a day's time, be in
her presence--touching her dress; and its wearer bowing, and smiling, and
whispering--he had not bought that bliss by watching in the ram.
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