Averagely well versed in
such matters, as became one of his caste, Miltoun had not the power of
letting a work of art insidiously steal the private self from his soul,
and replace it with the self of all the world; and he examined this
far-famed presentment of the heathen goddess with aloofness, even
irritation. The drawing of the body seemed to him crude, the whole
picture a little flat and Early; he did not like the figure of the
Flora. The golden serenity, and tenderness, of which she had spoken,
left him cold. Then he found himself looking at the face, and slowly,
but with uncanny certainty, began to feel that he was looking at the
face of Audrey herself. The hair was golden and different, the eyes grey
and different, the mouth a little fuller; yet--it was her face; the same
oval shape, the same far-apart, arched brows, the same strangely tender,
elusive spirit. And, as though offended, he turned and walked on. In
the window of that little shop was the effigy of her for whom he had
bartered away his life--the incarnation of passive and entwining love,
that gentle creature, who had given herself to him so utterly, for whom
love, and the flowers, and trees, and birds, music, the sky, and the
quick-flowing streams, were all-sufficing; and who, like the goddess
in the picture, seemed wondering at her own existence.
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