“Yes,” he acquiesced, “yours is.”
“Mine? I don’t agree with you; my features are too indescribable. There. It’s finished. I have caught the expression, haven’t! But I haven’t done justice to the nose. Will you sit in this chair near the window, please? you are dreadfully late, so we mustn’t waste further time.”
Jill worked rapidly, and there could not possibly be any question as to her ability. Markham watched her with interest, and every now and again he rose from his seat to have a look how the work progressed, notwithstanding her protest that it spoilt the pose.
“I can’t help that,” he declared, “it fascinates me, I must look.”
“I had no idea before that you were so vain,” she said.
“I’m not,” he answered. “It isn’t the subject that interests me but the work. I could stand behind you and watch you all day.”
“Not having eyes at the back of my head I shouldn’t make much progress with the portrait in that case,” she retorted. “Do you mind going back to your seat, please, and allowing me to study your physiognomy again?”
He obeyed reluctantly, and for a time the work continued in silence; Jill was too engrossed to talk, and Markham apparently had no desire to. He sat quite motionless watching her with a strained, intent, unfathomable expression in his glance that Jill in unconscious accuracy was transmitting to the painted eyes on the canvas, though the expression was by no means habitual to him, and gave the portrait an unlifelike appearance. She shook her head over it despondently, and stood back from the easel in order to take a better look.
“I must leave the eyes alone to-day,” she said, “I am making a muddle of them. They are your eyes, and yet they are not yours. I don’t understand it.”
“Oh, bother the portrait,” he exclaimed. “Put it up for to-day and let’s talk.”