"That is all," she said more calmly, but with working face. "Your parrot-like talk of Mr. Curtiss's rights provoked me," and she moved toward the door.
I paused for a last glance at the portrait, and again I was struck by its likeness to some one I knew.
"That is a most remarkable picture," I said. "The person who painted it seems to have been clumsy enough, and yet there is something vital and bewitching about it."
There was a signature scrawled in one corner, and I bent closer to decipher it.
"It was painted by a cousin of mine," said Miss Kingdon indifferently.
And suddenly the scrawl became intelligible.
"'Ruth Endicott,'" I read, with a quick glow of interest.
"What do you know of her?" she demanded, looking at me sharply.
"Nothing," I answered, as indifferently as I could. "Only, I should be interested to know how she developed. She seems to have had great talent."
"That was the last picture she ever painted," said Miss Kingdon shortly; then her eyes flamed suddenly and her face darkened, as she stepped close to the portrait and stared at it. "She was beautiful—beautiful!" she murmured hoarsely, and I knew that Ruth Endicott's last painting had been a portrait of herself.