“There?” my companion gasped.
“A career bigger still than among us, as he considers we haven’t half their eye. He guarantees her a succès fou.”
She couldn’t get over it. “Louisa Brash? In Paris?”
“They do see,” I went on, “more than we and they live extraordinarily, don’t you know, in that. But she’ll do something here too.”
“And what will she do?”
If frankly now I couldn’t help giving Mrs. Brash a longer look, so after it I could as little resist sounding my converser. “You’ll see. Only give her time.”
She said nothing during the moment in which she met my eyes; but then: “Time, it seems to me, is exactly what you and your friend want. If you haven’t talked with her—”
“We haven’t seen her? Oh we see bang off—with a click like a steel spring. It’s our trade, it’s our life, and we should be donkeys if we made mistakes. That’s the way I saw you yourself, my lady, if I may say so; that’s the way, with a long pin straight through your body, I’ve got you. And just so I’ve got her!”
All this, for reasons, had brought my guest to her feet; but her eyes had while we talked never once followed the direction of mine. “You call her a Holbein?”
“Outreau did, and I of course immediately recognised it. Don’t you? She brings the old boy to life! It’s just as I should call you a Titian. You bring him to life.”