"All day," was Cora's answer; and the face momentarily turned in Pauline's direction, with its glimpse of charming, dimpled chin, with the transitory light from its sweet, blue, lustrous eyes, affected her as a rarity of feminine beauty. "But I often have my hours of stupidity," Cora continued. "It is not so with me to-day. I have somehow seized my idea and mastered it, such as it is. You can see nothing on the canvas as yet. It is all obscure and sketchy."
"It is still very vague," said Pauline. "But have you no finished pictures?"
"Oh, yes, five or six. They are some yonder, if you choose to look at them."
"I do choose," Pauline replied, rising. She went toward the wall which Cora had indicated by a slight wave of her brush.
The pictures were four in number. They were without frames. Pauline examined each attentively. She knew nothing of Art in a technical and professional way; but she had seen scores of good pictures abroad; she knew what she liked without being able to tell why she liked it, and not seldom it befell that she liked what was intrinsically and solidly good.
"You paint figures as if you had studied in foreign schools," she said, quite suddenly, turning toward her hostess.
"I studied in Paris for a year," Cora replied. "That was all mamma could afford for me." And she gave a sad though by no means despondent little laugh.
"You surely studied to advantage," declared Pauline. "Your color makes me think of Henner ... and your flesh-tints, too. And as for these two landscapes, they remind me of Daubigny. It is a proof of your remarkable talent that you should paint both landscapes and figure-pieces with so much positive success."
Cora's face was glowing, now. "You have just named two artists," she exclaimed, "whose work I have always specially admired and loved. If I resemble either of them in the least, I am only too happy and thankful!"
Pauline was silent for several minutes. She was watching Cora with great intentness. "Ah! how I envy you!" she at length murmured, and as she thus spoke her voice betrayed excessive feeling.