"Come here, Joan, and I will tell you why I didn't notice you, though I longed to do so. Come and sit down by me and I'll explain why I seemed so rude."
She came slowly and sat down some distance from him, putting her elbows on her knees and looking away to sea.
"'Tweern't kind," she said, "but when you'm with other folks, I s'pose you'm ashamed o' me 'spite what you tawld me 'bout yourself."
"You mustn't say that, Joan, or you'll make me unhappy. Ashamed of you! Is it likely I'm ashamed of the only friend I've got in the world? No, I'm frightened of losing you; I'm selfish; I couldn't make you known to any other man because I should be afraid you'd like him better than me, and then I should have no friend at all. So I wouldn't speak and reveal my treasure to anybody else. I'm very fond of my friend, and very proud of her, and as greedy as a miser over his gold."
Joan took a long breath before this tremendous assertion. He had told her in so many words that he was fond of her; and he had mentioned it most casually as a point long since decided. Here was the question which she had asked herself so often answered once for all. Her heart leaped at tidings of great joy, and as she looked up into his face the man saw infinite wonder and delight in her own. Mind was adding beauty to flesh, and he, fast losing the artist's instinct before another, thought she had never looked so lovely as then.
"Oh, Mister Jan, you'm fond o' me!"
"Why, didn't you know it, Joan? Did it want my words to tell you so? Hadn't you guessed it?"
He rose slowly and approached his picture.
"Oh, how I wish this was a little more like my dream and like reality! I need inspiration, Joan; I have reached a point beyond which I cannot go. My colors are dead; my soul is dead. Something must happen to me or I shall never finish this."
"Ban't you so well as you was?"