For an instant, she did not understand. "Am I not right?" she asked anxiously. Then, before he could answer--"Oh, have you finished? Is it all done?"
Still smiling, he answered almost sadly, "I have done all that I can do. Come."
A moment later, she stood in the studio door.
Seeing her hesitate, he said again, "Come."
"I--I am afraid to look," she faltered.
He laughed. "Really I don't think it's quite so bad as that."
"Oh, but I don't mean that I'm afraid it's bad--it isn't."
The painter watched her,--a queer expression on his face,--as he returned curiously, "And how, pray tell, do you know it isn't bad--when you have never seen it? It's quite the thing, I'll admit, for critics to praise or condemn without much knowledge of the work; but I didn't expect you to be so modern."
"You are making fun of me," she laughed. "But I don't care. I know your work is good, because I know how and why you did it. You painted it just as you painted the spring glade, didn't you?"
"Yes," he said soberly, "I did. But why are you afraid?"