Kitty shook her head, and walked to the window.
“Come back, or I won’t tell you.”
Kitty hesitated; then marched back.
“Tell me directly.”
“It was Mr Everitt himself.”
“Bell!”
The hot colour surged up all over the girl’s face and throat; after that one word, she stood speechless. Her model Mr Everitt, the painter—the great painter, as she called him! It was impossible, impossible! But Bell’s amusement was intense, “I don’t know that I should have told you yet, if you had not suspected something in that innocent little way of yours. Still, it was almost more than I could keep to myself; and oh, Kitty, imagine the situation when last night I met him at a dinner-party!”
But Kitty did not laugh.
“Bell,” she said gravely, “I can’t believe it. I am sure you must be making some extraordinary mistake.”
“My dear, I am quite, quite certain. Why, even my father, who only saw him here yesterday, fidgeted all last night about some likeness. I didn’t say a word. It wouldn’t do with papa.”