“Why was the picture given to you?”
“I asked for it,” said June, whose simple honesty now involved a tell-tale blush.
Mr. Keller looked her steadily in the eye, and then he laughed, but not unsympathetically.
“Your best boy, I suppose, and he could deny you nothing.”
“That’s it,” said June awkwardly. This audacious irony was new to her, and she did not know how to meet it.
“By the way, what is this young chap of yours? An artist?”
“Yes,” said June. “I suppose he is—in a way. He studies art and renovates pictures, and he knows a lot about them.”
“Not so much as he thinks,” said Adolph Keller, “else he would not be such a fool as to give away a Van Roon, even to a girl as nice and pretty as you are.”
He had lowered his voice to a whisper of rare sweetness and carrying power. There was something about him that was powerfully attractive; at the same time, a look had crept into a pair of rather furtive eyes which was oddly repellent.
“Do you say you really have this picture in your possession?” His intentness when he put this question made June feel a little uncomfortable.