Dale staggered and turned giddy, but listened with eyes fixed upon the door, hardly daring to believe till he saw it open, and the dark, closely veiled figure enter quickly.
Then there was a reaction, and he asked himself why he had suffered like this. What was the poorly dressed woman who had just entered to him?
His lips parted, but he did not speak, only waited.
“Am I too late?” she said, in her strongly accented French. “Some other? The picture finished?”
“No,” he said coldly; and he wondered at her collected manner as he caught the glint of a pair of searching eyes. “I have waited for you. Why have you been so long?”
“I have been ill,” she said simply, and her tones suggested suffering.
“Ill?” he cried excitedly; and he took a step towards her with outstretched hand. “I am very sorry.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly, and ignoring the extended hand. “I am once more well, and I must be quick. Shall I stay one more hour every day and you pay me more? Oh, no. For the same!”
“Yes, pray do,” he said huskily, and he thrust his hand into his pocket to pay her in advance according to his custom, but she ignored the money as she had previously passed his hand without notice, and after pointing to the door, she hurried through into his room, to return in a wonderfully short space of time and take her place upon the dais.
Dale began to paint eagerly, feverishly, so as to lose himself in his work, but in a few minutes he raised his eyes to see the glint of those which seemed to be watching him suspiciously through the thick veil, as if ready to take alarm at the slightest word or gesture on his part, and at once the power to continue his work was gone. He felt that he must speak, and in a deep husky voice he began—