�Ah, I understand—you couldn�t part with it, after all!� he cried.
�No—I couldn�t part with it,� she answered.
�It�s too beautiful,—too beautiful,�—he assented.
�Too beautiful?� She turned on him with a curious stare. �I have never thought it beautiful, you know.�
He gave back the stare. �You have never—�
She shook her head. �It�s not that. I hate it; I�ve always hated it. But he wouldn�t let me—he will never let me now.�
Wyant was startled by her use of the present tense. Her look surprised him, too: there was a strange fixity of resentment in her innocuous eye. Was it possible that she was laboring under some delusion? Or did the pronoun not refer to her father?
�You mean that Doctor Lombard did not wish you to part with the picture?�
�No—he prevented me; he will always prevent me.�
There was another pause. �You promised him, then, before his death—�