"Who says I don't wear a window in my breast?" he laughed. "The girl's a little country girl I knew in England—I didn't know she was in Paris. And I thought I knew the woman, too, but that's impossible: it's only a likeness."
"One nice thing about me is that I never ask impertinent questions—or hardly ever. That one slipped out and I withdraw it. I don't want to know anything about anything and I'm sorry I spoke. I see, of course, that she is a little country girl you knew in England, and that you are not at all interested in her. How fast the leaves fall now, don't they?"
"No question of your's could be im—could be anything but flattering. But since you are interested—"
"Not at all," she said politely.
"Oh, but do be interested," he urged, intent on checking her inconvenient interest, "because, really, it is rather interesting when you come to think of it. I was painting my big picture—I wish you'd come and see it, by the way. Will you some day, and have tea in my studio?"
"I should love it. When shall I come?"
"Whenever you will."
He wished she would ask another question about Betty, but she wouldn't. He had to go on, a little awkwardly.
"Well, I only knew them for a week—her and her aunt and her father—and she's a nice, quiet little thing. The father's a parson—all of them are all that there is of most respectable."
She listened but she did not speak.