“Oh, I can’t sit any more,” said Laura suddenly, and she jumped down in spite of his outcries. “Aren’t you nearly done?”
“Pretty well.” Oliver stepped back. “Like it?” he enquired politely; but he went off to unpack the luncheon basket without waiting for her answer.
Justin came up and looked over her shoulder. The canvas showed an arrangement of sunshine and white flesh and red hair, with no more than a conventional resemblance to Laura, but delicate and lovely as a bunch of shaded nasturtiums.
“Don’t you like it?” he asked.
She chose her words.
“It’s wonderful colour: like a fire-opal.”
He nodded quickly. She always found the words he wanted.
“That’s why I’ve bought it—at least, I’m going to—for Mother. Just the thing for the yellow parlour, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes.” She was pleased, tremendously pleased, that she was to live in Mrs. Cloud’s drawing-room. If they hung her over the mantelpiece they would see her every evening as they sat by the fire.... She thought—not because it was she herself, of course, but because it was such a good piece of work—that it ought to go over the mantelpiece....
“Wouldn’t you give your ears to draw like that?” There was a wistfulness in Justin’s voice that should have touched her. He was thinking of himself, not of her.