"I should, of course, do my best—to—keep your good opinion of my capability," answered Eugene, with downcast eyes and a hesitating tongue.
Lucy had taken up a portfolio and was turning over its contents, simply to avoid having to meet his glances. She was afraid he might read what was passing in her mind.
"But whether I should be able to satisfy a lady who has so much artistic knowledge—I hardly know," he admitted modestly, "for of late I have not been able to do much except this landscape."
He indicated a picture which hung at the other end of the room, wondering at the flush which had overspread Lucy's face as she bent over the portfolio, her blood tingling to her finger's ends.
She put down the treacherous portfolio hastily. The exposition of the secret hidden within its covers made her tremble. One of her own drawings, which she had probably thrown away, suddenly met her eyes. It had been enriched by a border of blue forget-me-nots, and as she drew it forth from one of the side pockets she saw, underneath it, written in Eugene's hand, the single word: "Unforgetable."
Her heart beat loudly; still she retained self-command enough to ask in an indifferent tone, when he would be ready to begin the sketch for the portrait, at the same time examining the picture to which he had drawn her attention.
"I should like to know, also, what your price is to be for the execution of the picture," she said, raising her eyes timidly.
He would have been glad to avoid any mentioning of the question of money, but when she insisted, in a hesitating voice, he named a small amount.
"I believe it is customary to pay half in advance," Lucy went on with an embarrassed smile, handing a fifty-dollar note to the confused Eugene, in spite of his shy protest that he was not in the least hurry about it.
After the day and hour had been fixed for the first sketch of the portrait, Lucy returned to the factory deeply gratified that she had found a way to help the poor woman in her distress. Her father, immersed in business, had scarcely noticed her absence. She would have liked to tell him something of the poverty and illness of his old foreman, but an indefinable feeling of shyness kept her silent. The factory was closed on the same day.