'If you wish.'
They had a short tussle with her uncle and escaped. He was conducted to a room midway upstairs: an heiress's conception of a saintly little room; and more impresive in purity, indeed it was, than a saint's, with the many crucifixes, gold and silver emblems, velvet prie-Dieu chairs, jewel- clasped sacred volumes: every invitation to meditate in luxury on an ascetic religiousness.
She depreciated her sketching powers. 'I am impatient with my imperfections. I am therefore doomed not to advance.'
'On the contrary, that is the state guaranteeing ultimate excellence,' he said, much disposed to drone about it.
She sighed: 'I fear not.'
He turned the leaves, comparing her modesty with the performance. The third of the leaves was a subject instantly recognized by him. It represented the place he had inherited from Lord Dannisburgh.
He named it.
She smiled: 'You are good enough to see a likeness? My aunt and I were passing it last October, and I waited for a day, to sketch.'
'You have taken it from my favourite point of view.'
'I am glad.'