"The finest thing I ever did—on my life; one of the finest things any one ever did," he murmured; "and I can't show it!"
"No," said Eugene.
Ayre rose and took his stand before the picture. Then he got a chair, choosing the lowest he could find, and sat down, sitting well back. This attitude brought him exactly under the gaze of the eyes.
"Is it your diabolic fancy," he said, "or did you honestly copy it?"
"I never struck closer to what I saw," the painter replied. "It's not my doing; he looked like that."
"Then who was sitting, as it were, where I am now?"
"Yes," said Morewood. "I thought you couldn't miss it."
"Who was it?" asked Eugene, in an excited way.
The others looked keenly at him for a moment.
"You know," said Morewood. "Claudia Territon. She was sitting there reading. He had a book, too, but had laid it down on his knee. She sat reading, and he looking. In a moment I caught the look. Then she put down the book; and as she turned to him to speak, in a second it was gone, and he was not this picture nor the other, but as we know him every day."