your rudeness," I said.

"No, no, no!" he cried with a wail of grief. "I have insulted my
goddess. I have broken her heart. She will not speak to me. But look,
look!" he said, darting again toward the canvas and throwing aside the
drapery. "She is here! I have her here forever. No one can rob me of her
now."

Fancy my emotions. It was a portrait of myself!

I shall never forget the tipsy cunning of Paul Barr's expression, as he
watched the effect of his legerdemain. The portrait was excellent; it
was, indeed, a masterpiece. I was sufficiently in my senses to
appreciate that, though my absorbing thought was how to get out of the
room. For some moments we each kept our pose,--I standing surveying the
picture, and he with his eyes bent upon me, leaning against the easel
which was in the pathway to the door.

Suddenly, and to my intense surprise, he pronounced my name,--

"Virginia!"

It was a whisper almost, and spoken as one might breathe the name of a
saint.

"Virginia!"

Then with a low cry he stepped forward a pace or two and dropped on his
knees again.

"I love you, I adore you. I have broken your heart, my angel, but it was
love that forced me to it. Forgive me, and tell me if you can that there
is hope,--a shadow is enough. Hope that I may some day press you to this
bosom and call you mine,--mine for eternity! Virginia, hear me!--do not
look so cold and cruel; you are a stone, while I am burning! I have
loved you since the first moment I saw you. I wish my heart were dust
for you to trample on, if it may not beat forever close to yours. With
you as my bride I could conquer worlds. I could become an Angelo, a
Rubens. Without you I shall die!"

He seized my hands again and covered them with kisses.

"Mr. Barr, Mr. Barr! I cannot listen to you further. Let me go,--you are
mad."

"Yes, I am mad,--mad with love for you, sweet Virginia."

I tried to speak calmly, yet decisively, though from fear and pity I was
trembling like a leaf. I told him that I could not grant what he asked.
I loved him as a friend, as a brother almost, and would do anything to
serve him but consent to become his wife. His studio was no place for
such a conversation, I said. Let him come to my house, after he had
thought it over. He would agree then that he had been carried away by
the impulse of the moment, by the tension of his overstrained nerves,
and that a marriage between us would be an absurdity. Were not our
tastes and habi