“Yes, indeed,” said her mother, not quite entering into this; “and I’ll tell you what we will do. It was Mrs Marchmont who settled it for you?”
“Yes.”
“I will write and ask her to let Mr Everitt know that we do not require another model. That will avoid any direct communication.”
“I suppose it is the best plan.”
“My poor Kitty! Unless you can arrange always to have some one to paint with you, you had better keep to women. Now you must come, or those ravenous children will be unmanageable.”
All the rest of that day little Kitty was in a subdued mood. The more she thought over slight incidents of each sitting, the more she became convinced that Bell was right in her surmise. She had caught a glimpse of a shirt-cuff which was spotlessly clean; she remembered that the short trimness of his hair had struck her as inappropriate from the first. Then his voice. On this second day, a certain gruffness, which he had kept up on the first, quite disappeared; she had been surprised to find him expressing himself like an English gentleman. Moreover, she now recalled a momentary drawing back when she offered the money.
“I am glad I paid him; I am glad he had that to go through!” cried Kitty, with burning cheeks, and a longing to heap some humiliation on his head. “He must have hated it. I wonder what he did with the money?”
If Kitty had known, her cheeks would certainly have burnt more fiercely still; for Everitt had, with painful efforts, himself sewn up the money in a little case, and painted outside it the initials “K.L.” and a date.
This little case he will carry with him always—till his death.