June said with scorn: “He wants it as much as he wants a thousand pounds. And he doesn’t want it more. I believe money is his god. Think of the fifteen shilling he pays you a week. It makes my blood boil.”
A quick flush sprang to the young man’s cheek. “Money has nothing to do with this, Miss June.”
“It has to do with everything.”
Delicately he ventured to contradict. “Where love is, money doesn’t come in. I simply want to offer this priceless thing to the old master out of a full heart, as you might say.”
“Then you shouldn’t have parted with it.” She hated herself for her words, but she was not in a mood to soften them. “You have already had the pleasure of giving it to me, therefore it is only right that you should now deny yourself the pleasure of giving it to Uncle Si. It is like eating your cake and having it.”
William was not apt in argument, and this was cogent reasoning. He lacked the wit to meet it, yet he stuck tenaciously to his guns. “When you realize what this rare treasure means to the old man, I’m sure you’ll change your mind.”
June shook her head. Secretly, however, she felt like weakening a bit. In the wistful voice was a note that hurt. But she could not afford to yield; there was far too much at stake. “I shall have to think the matter over very carefully,” she temporised. “And, in the meantime, not a word to Uncle Si that the picture’s mine.”
She mustered the force of will to exact a promise. Bewildered, sad, a little incredulous, he gave it.
“I hope he doesn’t hate me half as much as I hate myself,” was the swift and sickening thought that annihilated June, as she ran from the studio, having recollected with a pang of dismay that she had not put in the pudding for dinner.