“Not quite,” I said.

She asked to see it, and I wheeled out the easel and threw the drapery back.

“Oh,” she murmured, “you haven’t gone on with the face?”

I shook my head.

She looked down on her clasped hands and up at the picture; not once at me.

“You—you’re going to finish it?”

“Of course,” I cried, throwing the revived purpose into my voice. By God, I would finish it!

The merest tinge of relief stole over her face, faint as the first thin chirp before daylight.

“Is it so very difficult?” she asked tentatively.

“Not insuperably, I hope.”