"My help! _Gott in Himmel!_ You shall not have my help! What! do you fancy that you may turn my painting-room into a playhouse stage, and act your farces--"
The servant had thrown open the door as he made the announcement.
"Ah! Heaven is on my side! I need not your help," cried the actress, in an aside, as she turned to a mirror to still further dishevel her hair.
The Duke of Marlborough, entering the studio, found himself confronted by a lovely woman visibly fluttered, and apparently anxious to prevent the lace upon her shoulders from revealing even so much of her bosom as the painter had thought necessary for artistic purposes.
"Ha! Kneller!" cried the Duke, "I find that I am an intruder. How is this, sir? Your fellow said that you were alone."
"It is only my friend, Mistress Barry, your Grace, whose portrait has become my pastime," said Sir Godfrey.
"And Mistress Barry is of no account," said the actress, sinking in a courtesy. "Ah, your Grace, Sir Godfrey forces me to excuse both his own imprudence and my impudence. When I learned that the Duke of Marlborough was to come hither I implored him to permit me to remain in order that the dream of my poor life might be realised."
"The dream of your life, madam?" said the Duke.
"I dare say 't is the dream of many lives," said the lady in a low voice, somewhat broken by an emotion she could not repress, even though she took one hand away from her lace to still the beating of her heart. "And now that I find myself face to face with the one who has saved our country's honour in an hundred fights, I protest that I am overcome with the result of my boldness. Oh, your Grace, forgive the weakness of a poor weak woman."
"Madam," said the Duke, "this moment repays me for whatever trifling hardship I have undergone in my campaigns. To find that all the charms of Mistress Barry on the stage are but feeble compared with those gifts of nature with which she had been endowed, were sure an astonishment to one who had seen her only when she was the centre of a thousand eyes."
"Oh, your Grace is determined to overwhelm your friends with your compliments as you do your enemies with your culverins. But I vow I am too forward. I am presuming to include my poor self among your Grace's friends."