long, they loved each other so profoundly that they felt no need of denying to each other their love, nor yet of telling it.
One day, towards evening, Ginevra heard the accustomed signal. Luigi scratched with a pin on the woodwork in a manner that produced no more noise than a spider might make as he fastened his thread. The signal meant that he wished to come out of his retreat.
Ginevra glanced around the studio, and not seeing Laure, opened the door; but as she did so Luigi caught sight of the little pupil and abruptly retired. Surprised at his action, Ginevra looked round, saw Laure, and said, as she went up to the girl’s easel:—
“You are staying late, my dear. That head seems to me finished; you only want a high-light,—see! on that knot of hair.”
“You would do me a great kindness,” said Laure, in a trembling voice, “if you would give this copy a few touches; for then I could carry away with me something to remind me of you.”
“Willingly,” said Ginevra, painting a few strokes on the picture. “But I thought it was a long way from your home to the studio, and it is late.”
“Oh! Ginevra, I am going away, never to return,” cried the poor girl, sadly.
“You mean to leave Monsieur Servin!” exclaimed Ginevra, less affected, however, by this news than she would have been a month earlier.
“Haven’t you noticed, Ginevra, that for some days past you and I have been alone in the studio?”
“True,” said Ginevra, as if struck by a sudden recollection. “Are all those young ladies ill, or going to be married, or are their fathers on duty at court?”
“They have left Monsieur Servin,” replied Laure.
“Why?”
“On your account, Ginevra.”
“My account!” repeated the Corsican, springing up, with a threatening brow and her eyes flashing.
“Oh! don’t be angry, my kind Ginevra,” cried Laure, in deep distress. “My mother insists on my leaving the studio. The young ladies say that you have some intrigue, and that Monsieur Servin allows the young man whom you love to stay in the dark attic. I have never believed these calumnies nor said a word to my mother about them. But last night Madame Roguin met her at a ball and asked her if she still sent me here. When my mother answered yes, Madame Roguin told her the falsehoods of those young ladies. Mamma scolded me severely; she said I must have known it all, and that I had failed in proper confidence between mother and daughter by not telling her. Oh! my dear Ginevra! I, who took you for my model, oh! how grieved I am that I can’t be your companion any longer.”
“We shall meet again in life; girls marry—” said Ginevra.
“When they are rich,” signed Laure.
“Come and see me; my father has a fortune—”
“Ginevra,” continued Laure, tenderly. “Madame Roguin and my mother are coming to see Monsieur Servin to-morrow and reproach him; hadn’t you better warn him.”
A thunderbolt falling at Ginevra’s feet could not have astonished her more than this revelation.
“What matter is it to them?” she asked, naively.
“Everybody thinks it very wrong. Mamma says it is immoral.”
“And you, Laure, what do you say?”
The young girl looked up at Ginevra, and their thoughts united. Laure could no longer keep back her tears; she flung herself on her friend’s breast and sobbed. At this moment Servin came into the studio.
“Mademoiselle Ginevra,” he cried, with enthusiasm, “I have finished my picture! it is now being varnished. What have you been doing, meanwhile? Where are the young ladies; are they taking a holiday, or are they in the country?”
Laure dried her tears, bowed to Monsieur Servin, and went away.
“The studio has been deserted for some days,” replied Ginevra, “and the young ladies are not coming back.”
“Pooh!”
“Oh! don’t laugh,” said Ginevra. “Listen: I am the involuntary cause of the loss of your reputation—”
The artist smiled, and said, interrupting his pupil:—
“My reputation? Why, in a few days my picture will make it at the Exposition.”
“That relates to your talent,” replied the girl. “I am speaking of your morality. Those young ladies have told their mothers that Luigi was shut up here, and that you lent yourself—to—our love.”
“There is some truth in that, mademoiselle,” replied the professor. “The mothers of those young ladies are foolish women; if they had come straight to me I should have explained the matter. But I don’t care a straw about it! Life is short, anyhow.”
And the painter snapped his fingers above his head. Luigi, who had heard part of the conversation, came in.
“You have lost all your scholars,” he cried. “I have ruined you!”
The artist took Luigi’s hand and that of Ginevra, and joined them.
“Marry one another, my children,” he said, with fatherly kindness.
They both dropped their eyes, and their silence was the first avowal they had made to each other of their love.
“You will surely be happy,” said Servin. “There is nothing in life to equal the happiness of two beings like yourselves when bound together in love.”
Luigi pressed the hand of his protector without at first being able to utter a word; but presently he said, in a voice of emotion:—
“To you I owe it all.”
“Be happy! I bless and wed you,” said the painter, with comic unction, laying his hands upon the heads of the lovers.
This little jest put an end to their strained emotion. All three looked at one another and laughed merrily. Ginevra pressed Luigi’s hand in a strong clasp, with a simplicity of action worthy of the customs of her native land.
“Ah ca, my dear children,” resumed Servin, “you think that all will go right now, but you are much mistaken.”
The lovers looked at him in astonishment.
“Don’t be anxious. I’m the only one that your romance will harm. But the fact is, Madame Servin is a little straitlaced; and I don’t really see how we are to settle it with her.”
“Heavens! and I forgot to tell you,” exclaimed Ginevra, “that Madame Roguin and Laure’s mother are coming here to-morrow to—”
“I understand,” said the painter.
“But you can easily justify yourself,” continued the girl, with a proud movement of her head. “Monsieur Luigi,” she added, turning to him with an arch look, “will no longer object to entering the royal service. Well, then,” after receiving a smile from the young man, “to-morrow morning I will send a petition to one of the most influential persons at the ministry of War,—a man who will refuse nothing to the daughter of the Baron di Piombo. We shall obtain a ‘tacit’ pardon for Captain Luigi, for, of course, they will not allow him the rank of major. And then,” she added, addressing Servin, “you can confound the mothers of my charitable companions by telling them the truth.”
“You are an angel!” cried Servin.
While this scene was passing at the studio the father and mother of Ginevra were becoming impatient at her non-return.
“It is six o’clock, and Ginevra not yet home!” cried Bartolomeo.
“She was never so late before,” said his wife.
The