Mrs. Hawthorne told him next day at the first opportunity, like one eager to make reparation for an injustice, “It’s all right now! A beautiful plate came yesterday afternoon from Ginori’s where my dinner-set was bought–a plate, you know, to match the one that got broken. As if I cared anything about the old plate! And along with it Mr. Landini’s card, with such a nice message written on it. Don’t you think it white in him? When it was all my fault. And in the evening Charlie Hunt came and was 194sweet as pie. We’re just as good friends as ever. I’m ashamed of myself for having felt so put out. Forget anything I said that didn’t seem quite kind. He’s all right. It’s me that’s crochety.... Isn’t that picture far enough along for you to let me see it?”
“No, Mrs. Hawthorne.”
“Will you let me see it when it’s far enough along?”
“No.”
“I think you’re real mean. How much longer will it take to finish it?”
“Does sitting bore you so much?”
“Land, no! Bore me? I perfectly love it! It’s like taking a sea-voyage with some one. You see more of them in a week or two than you would in the same number of years on land. I’m getting to feel I know you quite well.”
“Wasn’t it clever of me to think of the portrait?”
“Go ’way! D’you see anything green in my eye? As I was saying, I’m getting to know you pretty well. You get mad awful’ easy, don’t you? But you don’t hate people, really, nearly as much as I do, that it takes a lot to make mad. There are people in this world that I hate–oh, how I hate ’em! I hate ’em so I could almost put their eyes out. But you, Stickly-prickly, when it comes right down to it, I notice you make a lot of allowance for people. Do you know, when it comes right down to it, you’re one of the patientest persons I know. I’d take my chances with you for a judge a lot sooner than I’d like to with loads of people who aren’t half so ready to call you a blame’ fool.”
“While you have been making these valuable discoveries in character, what do you suppose I have been doing, Mrs. 195Hawthorne?” asked Gerald, after the time it would take to bow ceremoniously in acknowledgement of a compliment.