"And now," said Jasmine to herself when another quarter of an hour had gone by and she was dressed, "and now which picture shall I give them?"
She pulled down the cord of the electric light to illuminate better her choice, pulled it down so far that it would not go up again, but stayed hovering above the billowy floor like a sea-bird about to alight upon a wave. It was easy, or difficult, to choose for presentation one of Sholto Grant's pictures, because in subject and treatment they were all much alike. In every foreground there was a peasant girl among olive trees, in every middle distance olive groves, and in every background the rocks and sea of Sirene. The choice resolved itself into whether you wanted a bunch of anemones, a bunch of poppies, an armful of broom, or a basket of cherries; it was really more like shopping at a greengrocer's than choosing a picture. In the end Jasmine, who by now was herself beginning to feel hungry, chose fruit rather than flowers, and went downstairs with a four-foot square canvas.
"I ought to have warned you that in the country we always dine at half-past seven. It was my fault," said Lady Grant.
Penitence is usually as unconvincing as gratitude, and certainly nobody in the room, from Jasmine to Hargreaves the parlourmaid waiting to announce dinner, supposed for a moment that her ladyship was really assuming responsibility for the long wait.
"I thought perhaps you might like one of father's pictures," Jasmine began.
"Oh dear me ... oh yes," hemmed Lady Grant, who, to do her justice, did not want to hurt her niece's feelings, but who felt that the lusciousness of the scene presented might be too much for her husband's appetite. Sir Hector, craning at the picture, asked what the principal figure was holding in her basket.
"Cherries, aren't they?" suggested Lettice.
"Ah, yes, so they are," her father agreed. "Cherries.... Precisely.... Come, come, we mustn't let the soup get cold. The dessert can wait."
On the wings of a dreary little titter they moved toward the dining-room; Sir Hector, leading the way like a turkey-cock in a farmyard, murmured, whether in pity for the dead brother who could no longer feel hungry or in compassion for his art: