"I did take it down, but it left a smudge on the wall, so I had to put it back again."
"Then you sometimes think of me?" she enquired, with curiosity.
"Not when I can help it," he retorted, laughing.
His ironic pleasantry stung her into an irritation which showed plainly in her face; and she appeared, for the first time, to bend her intelligence toward some definite achievement.
"And is that always easy?" she asked, in a tone of mere flippant banter.
A petty impulse of revenge lent sharpness to his voice. "Easier than you think," he responded coolly.
"Well, I suppose, I'll have to take the punishment," she answered, as lightly as before; and then turning to the mantelpiece again, she raised her glance to the portrait. "I never liked it," she commented frankly, "he's got me in an unnatural position—I never stood like that in my life—and there's an open smirk about the mouth."
He saw her face in the admirable pose which he remembered—the chin held slightly forward, the cheek rounded upward, the eyes uplifted—and for an instant he waited, half hoping that her voice of wine and honey would roll from between her lips. But she was frugal of her notes, he recalled the instant afterward.
"I've always considered it a pretty fair likeness," he remarked.
"Then you've always considered me pretty hideous," she flashed back in annoyance.