“Yes, it is rather awkward. Can’t you paint one or two of them out? Then, you have put this switch stand on the wrong side of the track; the engineer couldn’t see that target until he got right up to it, and then he’d be in the ditch.”
Isabel said, “Yes—go on”; and Antrim went on, glad enough to have found something which he was competent to criticise.
“Then, these cars again: if you don’t paint them out you’d better paint them over. There are no high-sided gondolas on the narrow gauge, and no cars of any kind as big as these you have here.”
It was unkind of Isabel to stand at the back of his chair where he could see none of the signs of the gathering storm, and there was no note of warning in her reply.
“Do you really think they are too large?”
“I don’t think; I know. And I’ll prove it to you,” said he, confidently, taking his pencil and a slip of paper, and making sundry measurements on the station building in the picture. “Now, see here: this is what I mean. If you have kept the proportions right on this building, it ought to be about six feet between these two marks. Using that for a scale, you see these cars are about twice as long as they ought to be. And when you come to the height——”
Isabel flung the cloth over the painting and burst out passionately: “That is enough; it’s a picture—not a mechanical drawing! I knew there were miles enough between us, but you never miss a chance to count them all over to me. I——”
She choked, and turned quickly to the window, and Antrim, who was slow to anger, tried to make amends.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You know I told you it was no use. I’ll admit that I don’t know a good picture when I look at it.”
“I sha’n’t trouble you to look at any more of mine.” This to the window.