"No," said Margaret, and the word sounded blunt and cold in his ears. Who could he be, and how did he come here? Yesterday, fighting on the village green, this evening at Leyton Court. Then it flashed upon her: it was Lord Leyton! "No, I didn't hear you," she added.
"I came in quietly so as not to disturb you," he said, regaining some of his usual composure, but not all of it, for her loveliness dazzled, and her identity with the girl who had so sternly rebuked him yesterday, bewildered him.
"You—you are an artist?" he said.
"I have that honor," she said.
He looked at the copy.
"And a very good one! Your picture is better than the old one."
"You are not an artist, evidently," she said with a smile.
"No," he admitted; then a light shone in his eyes. "Oh, no, I am a savage!"
A burning blush covered her face, and she took up her brush.