“My lady!” she shrieked, “there’s MacPhail, the groom, my lady, dressed up in your honoured father’s bee-utiful clo’es as he always wore when he went to dine with the Prince! And, please, my lady, he’s that rude I could ’ardly keep my ’ands off him.”
Florimel flashed a dagger of question in Lenorme’s eyes. The painter drew himself up.
“It was at my request, Lady Lossie,” he said.
“Indeed!” returned Florimel, in high scorn, and glanced again at the picture.
“I see!” she went on. “How could I be such an idiot! It was my groom’s, not my father’s likeness you meant to surprise me with!”
Her eyes flashed as if she would annihilate him.
“I have worked hard in the hope of giving you pleasure, Lady Lossie,” said the painter, with wounded dignity.
“And you have failed,” she adjoined cruelly.
The painter took the miniature after which he had been working, from a table near, handed it to her with a proud obeisance, and the same moment dashed a brushful of dark paint across the face of the picture.
“Thank you, sir,” said Florimel, and for a moment felt as if she hated him.