“No. I took it myself. Oh, I am not absolutely the barbarian you think me. I have gone in for photography. Yes; this is one of my best efforts.”
“And do you think that face will lure Maurice to the East?”
“It ought to,” said Caliphronas, gazing at the picture with a burning light in his eyes; “she is as lovely as her namesake of Troy, and I love her, oh, how I love her!”
“Is it wise, do you think, to introduce a possible rival?”
“That does not matter to me,” replied the Count, slipping the picture into his pocket. “I have Justinian’s promise.”
“For the sake of her happiness, I hope she will.”
“You are very complimentary,” retorted the Greek ironically, turning away. “Well, I must leave your delightful society, my friend. It is time for me to go to the studio.”
“Wait a minute! I have not thwarted your plans, because, as far as I can see, they are innocent, but if you induce Maurice to go to the Levant”—
“A very simple one. I do not trust the scamp called Andros.”
“Better known, at least in England, as Constantine Caliphronas,” replied the Count coolly. “Well, come if you like, to watch over your precious friend. I do not wish him harm, but he, and you also, had better beware of Justinian.”
Dreary life, Aching fears, Endless strife, Bitter tears, Lo, a lovely face I see, Changing all the world to me.
Love’s delight, Beauty’s face, Smilings bright, Woman’s grace, Thus beholding these in thee, Thou hast changed the world to me.
The studio which Maurice had fitted up for himself at the Grange was a very workmanlike apartment, as it was quite barren of the artistic frippery with which painters love to decorate their rooms. Sculpture is a much more virile art than painting, and, scorning frivolous adornments of all kinds, the artist of the chisel devotes himself to the severest and highest forms of beauty, so that, he finds quite enough loveliness in his coldly perfect marble figures, without furnishing his studio like a Wardour Street toy-shop. Of course, he who works in colors loves to gaze on colors; and therefore a fantastic Eastern carpet, a quaint figured tapestry, a gold-broidered curtain of Indian silk, a yellow shield of antique workmanship, a porous red jar from Egypt, and such like brilliances, are pleasing to the artistic eye, and the constant sight of their blended hues keeps the sense of color, so to speak, up to the mark. The sculptor, however, has but one color, white, which is not a color; and the less luxurious his studio, the more likely is he to concentrate his attention on the statue growing to perfection under his busy chisel.