Mr. Flood whistled.
“Be careful, Anita.”
“He?” Miss Howe laughed, but kindly. “He’s lost to the world. He’ll be worse than ever now.”
“There!” Anita dropped upon the sentence like a hawk upon a heather bird. “You see! You say that! And yet you tell me there was nothing—nothing—between them? Didn’t she rave about him? his talents? his personality? his charm? And then she goes and writes the story of an artist’s model!”
Miss Howe laughed again.
“When a thing’s as obvious as that, it probably isn’t so. Besides, the artist’s model marries the artist.”
“Exactly. She leaves them, and us, cloyed with love in a cottage. I repeat, the artist’s model marries the artist because Madala Grey didn’t. It’s the merest shadow of a solution as yet, but—isn’t that a living portrait in The Resting-place? Oh, I know it by heart—
“Maybe it was his height that gave you the impression, less of weakness than of vagueness, as if his high forehead touched cloud-land, and were obscured by dreams; for his cold eyes guarded his mind from you, and his dark beard hid his mouth.”
“You do know it by heart!” said Miss Howe.
“Of course I know it by heart. It was the first clue. Can anybody read those lines without recognizing him?”