Mr. Duchemin looked at Macmaster with sane, muddled, rather exhausted eyes:
"Alla Finestra!" he exclaimed: "Oh yes! I've got the water-colour. I saw her sitting for it and bought it on the spot. . . ." He looked again at his plate, started at sight of the galantine and began to eat ravenously: "A beautiful girl!" he said: "Very long necked . . . She wasn't of course . . . eh . . . respectable! She's living yet, I think. Very old. I saw her two years ago. She had a lot of pictures. Relics of course! . . . In the Whitechapel Road she lived. She was naturally of that class. . . ." He went muttering on, his head above his plate. Macmaster considered that the fit was over. He was irresistibly impelled to turn to Mrs. Duchemin; her face was rigid, stiff. He said swiftly:
"If he'll eat a little: get his stomach filled . . . It calls the blood down from the head. . . ."
She said:
"Oh, forgive! It's dreadful for you! Myself I will never forgive!"
He said:
"No! No! . . . Why; it's what I'm for!"
A deep emotion brought her whole white face to life:
"Oh, you good man!" she said in her profound tones, and they remained gazing at each other.
Suddenly, from behind Macmaster's back Mr. Duchemin shouted: