And now strange echoes of a modern poet’s rhyme became mingled in my dream: 

   “You have chosen and clung to the chance they sent you—­
     Life sweet as perfume and pure as prayer,
    But will it not one day in heaven repent you? 
     Will they solace you wholly, the days that were? 
    Will you lift up your eyes between sadness and bliss,
    Meet mine and see where the great love is? 
    And tremble and turn and be changed?—­Content you;
     The gate is strait; I shall not be there.

    Yet I know this well; were you once sealed mine,
     Mine in the blood’s beat, mine in the breath,
    Mixed into me as honey in wine,
     Not time that sayeth and gainsayeth,
    Nor all strong things had severed us then,
    Not wrath of gods nor wisdom of men,
    Nor all things earthly nor all divine,
     Nor joy nor sorrow, nor life nor death!”

I watched with a deepening thrill of anxiety the scene in the studio, and my thoughts centred themselves upon the woman who sat there so quietly, seeming all unmoved by the knowledge that she held a man’s life and future fame in her hands.  The artist took up his palette and brushes again and began to work swiftly, his hand trembling a little.

“You have my whole confession now!”—­he said—­“You know that you are the eyes of the world to me—­the glory of the sun and the moon!  All my art is in your smile—­all my life responds to your touch.  Without you I am—­can be nothing—­Cosmo de Medicis—­”

At this name a kind of shadow crept upon the scene, together with a sense of cold.

“Cosmo de Medicis”—­he repeated, slowly—­“my patron, would scarcely thank me for the avowals I have made to his fair ward!—­one whom he intends to honour with his own alliance.  I am here by his order to paint the portrait of his future bride!—­not to look at her with the eyes of a lover.  But the task is too difficult—­”

A little sound escaped her, like a smothered cry of pain.  He turned towards her.

“Something in your face,”—­he said—­“a touch of longing in your sweet eyes, has made me risk telling you all, so that you may at least choose your own way of love and life—­for there is no real life without love.”

Suddenly she rose and confronted him—­and once again, as in a magic mirror, I saw my own reflected personality.  There were tears in her eyes,—­yet a smile quivered on her mouth.

“My beloved!”—­she said—­and then paused, as if afraid.

A look of wonder and rapture came on his face like the light of sunrise, and I recognised the now familiar features of Santoris!  Very gently he laid down his palette and brushes and stood waiting in a kind of half expectancy, half doubt.

“My beloved!” she repeated—­“Have you not seen?—­do you not know?  O my genius!—­my angel!—­am I so hard to read?—­so difficult to win?”