He
was as one beside himself, so wholly absorbed was he in translating into
the terms of color and line, the loveliness purity and truth that was
expressed by the personality of the girl as she stood among the flowers.
"If I can get it! If I can only get it!" he exclaimed again and again,
with a kind of savage earnestness, as he worked.
All his years of careful training, all his studiously acquired skill, all
his mastery of the mechanics of his craft, came to him, now, without
conscious effort--obedient to his purpose. Here was no thoughtful
straining to remember the laws of composition, and perspective, and
harmony. Here was no skillful evading of the truth he saw. So freely, so
surely, he worked, he scarcely knew he painted. Forgetting self, as he was
unconscious of his technic, he worked as the birds sing, as the bees toil,
as the deer runs. Under his hand, his picture grew and blossomed as the
roses, themselves, among which the beautiful girl stood.
Day after day, at that same hour, Sibyl Andres came singing through the
orange grove, to stand in the golden sunlight among the roses, with hands
outstretched in greeting. Every day, Aaron King waited her coming--sitting
before his easel, palette and brush in hand.
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