Farce? Yes. But at that moment began the tragedy of Leslie Lisle's life.
CHAPTER III.
RALPH DUNCOMBE.
The "great artist" went on painting, making the sketch more hideously and idiotically unnatural every minute, and was so absorbed in it that Leslie could not persuade him to leave it even for his lunch, and he maundered from the table to the easel with a slice of bread and butter in his hand, or held between his teeth as if he were a performing dog.
Leslie had played and sung to him until she was tired, and she cast a wistful glance from the window toward the blue sky and sunlit sea.
"Won't you leave it for a little while and come out on the beach, dear?" she said, coaxingly.
But Francis Lisle shook his head.
"No, no. I am just in the vein, Leslie; nothing would induce me to lose this light. But I wish you would go. It—it fidgets and unsettles me to have any one in the room who wants to be elsewhere. Go out for your walk; when you come back you will see what I have made of it; I flatter myself you will be surprised."
If she were not it would only be because she had seen so many similar pictures of his.