Out of a
grey and a rose tint a permanent music had been made... and, being
much less complete than an old master, it never satisfied. In this
picture there were not one but a hundred pictures. To hang it in a
different place in the room was to recreate it; it never was the
same, whereas the complete portraits of the old masters have this
fault--that they never rise above themselves. But a ray of light set
Evelyn's portrait singing like a skylark--background, face, hair,
dress--cadenza upon cadenza. When the blinds were let down, the music
became graver, and the strain almost a religious one. And these
changes in the portrait were like Evelyn herself, for she varied a
good deal, as Owen had often remarked to Harding; for one reason or
for some other--no matter the reason: suffice it to say that the
picture would be like her when the gold had faded from her hair and
no pair of stays would discover her hips. And now, sitting looking at
it, Owen remembered the seeming accident which had inspired him to
bring Evelyn to see the great painter whose genius it had been to
Owen's credit to recognise always. One morning in the studio Evelyn
had happened to sit on the edge of a chair; the painter had once
seen her in the same attitude by the side of her accompanist, and he
had told her not to move, and had gone for her grey shawl and placed
it upon her shoulders.
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