Mrs. Moss came from her dark corner. "I knew you'd do something exquisite."
Bertha looked at it in silence. It was as lovely in color as a flower, a dream-girl, not Bertha Haney. And at last she said: "It's fine, but it isn't me."
Humiston broke forth almost violently. "Of course it isn't you; it's the way you look to me. I never paint people as they look to themselves nor to their friends. I am painting my impression of you."
"Do you really see me like that?" she both asked and exclaimed. And at the moment she was more moving than she had ever been before, and Humiston, in a voice of anguish, cried:
"My God, why didn't I do her like that?" And he fell to coughing so violently that Bertha shuddered.
Moss defended himself. "I couldn't do her in all her fine poses," he complained. "I had to select. Why didn't you do her that way yourself?"
The painter put his short-hand sketch away with a sigh. "If you venture as far as New York, I hope you and the Captain will visit my studio," he said.
With no suspicion of being passed from hand to hand, she promised to send him her address, and said: "I'd like to see the pictures you have here."
Moss became abusive. "Now see here, Jerry, I can't let you take Mrs. Haney to that show of yours. I'll go myself to point out their weak points."
"I know their weak points a bloody sight better than you do," answered Humiston, readily.