He saw the glow of embarrassment, of acute pain tinging her throat and cheeks, and wondered how much of the past had been committed to her keeping; how far she shared her mother's confidence. During the year that she had been an inmate of his house she had never referred to the mystery of her parentage, and despite his occasional efforts to become better acquainted had shrunk from his presence, and remained the same shy reserved stranger she appeared the week of her arrival.
"Is not the portrait for me? Mother wrote that she intended sending me something which she hoped I would value more than all the pretty clothes, and it must be this, her own beautiful precious face."
"Yes, it is yours; but I presume you will be satisfied to allow it to hang where it is. The light is singularly good."
"No, sir, I want it."
"Well you have it, where you can see it at any time."
"But I wish to keep it, all to myself, in my room, where it will be the last thing I see at night, the first in the morning—my sunrise."
"How unpardonably selfish you are. Would you deprive me of the pleasure of admiring a fine work of art, merely to shut it in, converting yourself into a pagan, and the portrait into an idol?"
"But, Mr. Palma, you never loved any one or anything so very dearly, that it seemed holy in your eyes; much too sacred for others to look at."
"Certainly not. I am pleased to say that is a mild stage of lunacy, with which I have as yet never been threatened. Idolatry is a phase of human weakness I have been unable to tolerate."
He saw a faint smile lurking about the perfect curves of her rosy mouth, but her eyes remained fixed on the picture.