“Who was talking to her—and what could he have been saying?” was the first thought the little drawing suggested. But it merely flashed through French’s mind, for he had almost instantly recognized the portrait—just touched with caricature, yet living, human, even tender—of the woman he least expected to see there.
“Then she did know him!” he triumphed out aloud, forgetting who was at his elbow. He flushed up at his blunder and put the book in his companion’s hand.
Donald Paul stared at the page.
“She—who?”
French stood confounded. There she sat—Emily Morland—aquiver in every line with life and sound and colour: French could hear her very voice running up and down its happy scales! And beside him stood her lover, and did not recognize her....
“Oh—” Paul stammered at length. “It’s—you mean?” He looked again. “You think he meant it for Mrs. Morland?” Without waiting for an answer he fixed French with his large boyish gaze, and exclaimed abruptly: “Then you knew her?”
“Oh, I saw her only once—just once.” French couldn’t resist laying a little stress on the once.
But Donald Paul took the answer unresentfully. “And yet you recognized her. I suppose you’re more used than I am to Fingall’s way of drawing. Do you think he was ever very good at likenesses? I do see now, of course ... but, come, I call it a caricature, don’t you?”
“Oh, what does that matter?”
“You mean, you think it’s so clever?”