Pitiful as was this design, I yet pursued it. I entered the picture
room at a moment which was sufficiently auspicious for my objects.
They were the only occupants of the apartment. I learned this
fact before I ascended the stairs from the keeper of the gallery,
who sat in a lower room. The stairs were carpeted. I wore light
thin pumps, which were noiseless. I may add, as a singular moral
contradiction, that I not only did not move stealthily, but that
I set down my feet with greater emphasis than was usual with me,
as if I sought, in this way to lessen somewhat the meanness of my
proceeding. My approach, however, was entirely unheard; and I stood
for a few seconds in the doorway, gazing upon the parties without
making them conscious of my intrusion.
Julia was sitting, gazing, with hand lifted above her eyes, at a
Murillo--a ragged Spanish boy, true equally to the life and to the
peculiar characteristics of that artist--dark ground-work, keen,
arch expression, great vivacity, with an air of pregnant humor which
speaks of more than is shown, and makes you fancy that other pictures
are to follow in which the same boy must appear in different phases
of feeling and of fortune.
I need not say that the pictures, however, called for a momentary
glance only from me. My glances were following my thoughts, and
they were piercing through the only possible avenues, the cheeks,
the lips, the tell-tale eyes, deep down into the very hearts of
the suspected parties. They were so placed that, standing at the
door, and half hidden from sight by a screen, I could see with
tolerable distinctness the true expsion in each countenance, though
I saw but half the face. Julia was gazing upon the pictures, but
Edgerton was gazing upon her! He had no eyes for any other object;
and I fancied, from the abstracted and almost vacant expression
of his looks, that I without startling him from his dream. In his
features, speaking, even in their obliviousness of all without, was
one sole, absorbing sentiment of devotion. His eyes were riveted
with a strenuous sort of gaze upon her, and her only. He stood
partly on one side, but still behind her, so that, without changing
her position, she could scarcely have beheld his countenance.
I looked in vain, in the brief space of time which I employed in
surveying them, but she never once turned her head; nor did he once
withdraw his glance from her neck and cheek, a part only of which
could have been visible to him where he stood. Her features,
meanwhile, were subdued and placid. There was nothing which could
make me dissatisfied with her, had I not been predisposed to this
dissatisfaction; and when the tones of my voice were heard, she
started up to meet me with a sudden flash of pleasure in her eyes
which illuminated her whole countenance.