"This is the story," she said at last, folding her hands before her. "No, no," she added hastily, "I will not tell you the story, I will try and picture one scene. And when I have finished, tell me if you don't think I have a capital imagination." She drew herself up with a little gesture of mockery. "It is comedy, you know.
"Her name was Marion Conquest. She was beautiful—they said that of her then—and young, only sixteen. She had been very happy, for a man said that he loved her, and she wore his ring on her finger. One day, while she was visiting at a place far from her home, she was happier than usual. She wished to be by herself to wonder how it was that one could be so happy. You see, she was young and did not think often. She only lived. She took a horse and rode far away into the woods. She came near a cottage among the trees. She got off her horse and led it. Under a tree she saw a man and a woman. The man's arm was round the woman. A child four or five years old was playing at their feet—at the feet of its father and mother. * * * The girl came forward and faced the man—the man she had sworn to marry. As I said, his ring was on her finger."
She paused. People were passing near, and she smiled and bowed once or twice, but Hagar saw that the fire in her eyes had deepened.
"Is it strong enough for your picture?" she said quietly.
"It is as strong as it is painful. Yet there is beauty in it, too, for I see the girl's face."
"You see much in her face, of course, for you look at it as an artist. You see shame, indignation, bitterness—what else?"
"I see that moment of awe when the girl suddenly became a woman—as the serious day breaks all at once through the haze of morning."
"I know you can paint the picture," she said, "but you have no model for the girl. How shall you imagine her?"
"I said that I would paint you in the scene," he answered slowly.
"But I am not young, as she was; am not—so good to look at."