I saw that she, too, essayed the feat of being both light and serious without letting the seam show.
"I mean about pictures," I explained. "The gentlemanly curator of the side-show always says of the wild man thoughtfully, 'I believe he has a few photographs for sale.' He is always right—the wild man does have them, though I should not care to say that they're worth the money; that depends upon one's tastes, of course—by the way, Miss Lansdale, I have long had a picture of you."
"Has mother—"
"No—long before I became a fellow-slave with Clem—long before there was a juvenile mother or even a Clem in Little Arcady."
"May I ask how you got it?"
"Certainly you may! I don't know."
"May I see it?" I thought she felt a deeper interest than she cared to reveal.
"Unfortunately, no. If you only could see it, you would see that it is almost a perfect likeness—perhaps a bit more Little Miss than you could be now—but it's unmistakably true."
"I lost such a picture once," she said with a fall of her eyes. "Where is the one you have?"
"Sometimes it's behind my eyes and sometimes it is out before them."