"What a shame! I'm very sorry—I mean, very glad. But you might have spared yourself all this worry, dear, if you'd thought two minutes."
"How? How do you prove that what I imagined isn't true?"
"My dear girl, could you seriously suspect me of wanting to possess a coloured portrait on porcelain taken from a photograph? Did you think I'd have such a thing in the house—except inadvertently?"
"It's a pretty face," she said.
"But it's an appalling picture! Don't I care about things? I hope I haven't got any silly vanity about it, but I don't think I ever have anything wrong—I mean, artistically."
He looked round the room with the uncontrollable pride of the collector.
"No, my dear," he went on, "you've done me an injustice. From you I'm really surprised."
"But anything, as a souvenir of a person you like very much ..." she said hesitatingly.
"Oh, all right!" he answered. "Do you suppose if I'd an awful oleograph of you, even—that I'd keep it as a souvenir? Good heavens, Felicity, one doesn't bring sentiment into that sort of thing! You ought to have known me better."
She waited a moment.