She glanced at his book and went on with her painting. Neither of them had come there to talk, and why should they feel called upon to do it?
"This is scarcely a lady's book," he said,—though he would not have thought this remark necessary to a "Girton girl,"—"but, if I may, I think I could find one or two things that you might like to hear."
She smiled, well pleased. She had not forgotten how
"Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,"
had rolled out in his musical bass.
He read on for half an hour or so. Mona soon forgot her sketch and sat listening, her head resting on her hand.
He closed the book abruptly; he wanted no verbal thanks.
"And now," he said, "for my reward. May I look at your sketches?"
She coloured awkwardly. How could she show them? The scraps from Norway, and Italy, and Saxon Switzerland, might be explained; but what of the memory sketches of "the potent, grave, and reverend signiors" who had examined her at Burlington House? What of the caricature, which had amused the whole School, of Mademoiselle Lucy undergoing a Viva? What of her chef-d'œuvre, the study of the dissecting-room?
"I promised Rachel that I would keep the dreadful secret," she said ironically to herself, "and I am not going to break my word." But it cost her an effort to refuse. Some of the sketches were, in their way, undeniably clever, and she would have enjoyed showing them to him; and, moreover, she intensely disliked laying herself open to a charge of false modesty.