“Do you draw, Miss Wayne?”
A curious light glimmered across her face, for she remembered where she had last heard those words. She shrank a little, almost imperceptibly, as if her eyes had been suddenly dazzled. Then a little more distantly—not much more, but Arthur had remarked every thing—she said:
“Yes, I draw a little. Good-evening.”
“Stop, please, Miss Wayne!” exclaimed Arthur, as he saw that she was going. She turned and smiled—a smile that seemed to him like starlight, it was so clear and cool and dim.
“I have drawn this for you, Miss Wayne.”
She bent and took the sketch which he drew from his port-folio.
“It is Manfred in the Coliseum,” said he.
She glanced at it; but the smile faded entirely. Arthur stared at her in astonishment as the blood slowly ebbed from her cheeks, then streamed back again. The head of Manfred was the head of Abel Newt. Hope Wayne looked from the sketch to the artist, searching him with her eye to discover if he knew what he was doing. Arthur was sincerely unconscious.
Hope Wayne dropped the paper almost involuntarily. It floated into the road.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Merlin,” said she, making a step to recover it.