“Who introduced him to her?”
“I did, of course.”
“But his request was rather hasty, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, it wasn’t the first time. We met him again at the Russian Embassy.”
“And how does Mrs. Wyndwood know he can paint?”
Olive laughed quietly. “Oh, he said so. He usually tells the truth, I fancy. But he is an artist, isn’t he?”
“He was a Gold Medallist of the Royal Academy,” he answered, with unaccustomed bitterness. A mad envy was consuming him. Why had he not asked Mrs. Wyndwood to sit to him, seeing that her consent was so facile? Was he always to stand by while the best of life was seized and carried off by the bolder, the more reckless, nay, by the more unworthy? The remembrance that Herbert had the right, and he had not, did not dilute his bitterness, though it brought a hot flush to his cheek. Who was he to see profanation in the juxtaposition of Eleanor with a man like Herbert? However ignoble Herbert’s conception of womanhood, had not he himself always found him lovable?
“Aren’t you friends?” Olive asked, divining alienation in his tone.
He felt remorseful. “Oh, we are great friends,” he answered, with cordial warmth. “He was very kind to me when I first came to London.”
“He asked me to sit as well,” Olive pursued, satisfied.