“I shall never commit suicide,” said Madge with conviction.
“Ah, wait till you care about anything as much as I care about painting,” said Evelyn, “and then contemplate living without it. Why, I should cease without it. The world would be no longer possible; it wouldn’t, so to speak, hold water.”
“Ah, do you really feel about it like that?” said she. “Tell me what it’s like, that feeling.”
Evelyn laughed.
“You ought to know,” he said, “because I imagine it’s like being permanently in love.”
Here was as random an arrow as was ever let fly; he had been unconscious of even drawing his bow, but to his unutterable surprise it went full and straight to its mark. The girl’s face went suddenly expressionless, as if a lamp within had been turned out, and she rose quickly, with a half-stifled exclamation.
“Ah, what nonsense we are talking,” she said quickly.
Evelyn looked at her in genuine distress at having unwittingly caused her pain.
“Why, of course we are,” he said. “How people can talk sense all day beats me. They must live at such high pressure. Personally I preserve any precious grains of sense I may have, and put them into my pictures. Some of my pictures simply bristle with sense.”
The startled pain had not died out of Madge’s eyes, but she laughed, and Evelyn, looking at her, gave a little staccato exclamation.