“Will this do?” she asked, and read:
Dear Mr. Dundas.—I feel that I have no right whatever, since you wish me to give you another sitting, to refuse it. This has been pointed out to me quite clearly by Philip, who is with me now, and I see that it is not fair either on you or the portrait. I wonder if to-morrow would suit you? I could come any time between three and six. If three will do, pray do not trouble to answer, and I will assume the affirmative.
Philip’s habit of considering business letters led him to pause.
“Yes, that is amende honorable,” he said at length. “It will do excellently. But if you are bored, Madge, why not take your mother with you, or I would meet you there?”
“Oh, no, he would think it so odd,” she said lightly. “You see, I am accustomed to go alone. And he has told me that he hates other people in the studio while he is painting.”
She directed the note and rang the bell.
“There is one thing more, Philip,” she said, “and that is that I don’t want my mother to know I am going. You see, I told her, too, that I was not going to sit again, and if one goes back on one’s word, well, the fewer people who know about it the better. Everyone hates a changeable person who doesn’t know her own mind.”
Philip willingly gave his assurance on this point, for though it seemed to him rather a superfluous refinement, he was, on the whole, so pleased to have met with no opposition that he was delighted to leave the matter settled without more discussion. Then, since it was already time for him to go home and dress for the early dinner before the theatre, he got up.
“Ah! Madge,” he said, lingering a moment. “You don’t know, and you can’t guess, how divinely happy you make me. In the big things I knew it was so, but in little things it is so also. You are complete all through.”
This struck her like a blow. She could scarcely look at him, it was even harder to return his caress.