"You will be going to the mountains soon?" He saw that she was talking lightly to cover herself, and fell in with her mood. He watched her as he arranged the easel and prepared his colors. Once he stopped and sketched rapidly for a minute on the small drawing-board.
She looked inquiry.
"Only an eyebrow," he explained.
She smiled serenely. "You should make a collection of those eyebrows. They must mount into the hundreds by this time. You could label them 'Characters of the Lady Lisa.'"
"The Souls of Lady Lisa."
The lady turned her head aside. "Your distinctions are too subtle," she said. Her eye fell on the Bambino, resting disgracefully on its wooden head. "Poor little figurine," she murmured, reaching a slender hand to draw it up. She straightened the tumbled finery absently. It slipped to her lap, and lay there. Her hands were idle, her eyes looking far into space.
The painter worked rapidly. She stirred slightly. "Sit still," he said, almost harshly.
She gave a quick, startled look. She glanced at the rigid little figure. She raised it for a minute. Her face grew inscrutable. Would she laugh or cry? He worked with hasty, snatched glances. Such a moment would not come again. A flitting crash startled him from the canvas. He looked up. The Bambino lay in a pathetic heap on the floor, scattered with fragments of a rare Venetian glass. She sat erect and imperious, looking with scorn at the wreck. Two great tears welled. They overflowed. The floods pressed behind them. She dropped her face in her hands. Before he could reach her she had darted from the chair. The mask of scorn was gone. She fled from him, from herself, blindly, stopping only when the wall of the studio intervened. She stood with her face buried in the drapery, her shoulders wrenched with sobs.
He approached her. He waited. The Bambino lay with its wooden face staring at the ceiling. It was a crisis for them all. The next move would determine everything. He must not risk too much, again. The picture—art—hung on her sobs. Lover—artist? He paused a second too long.
She turned toward him slowly, serenely. Her glance fell across him, level and tranquil. The traces of ignored tears lay in smiling drops on her face. The softened scorn played across it. "Shall we finish the sitting?" she asked, in a conventional voice.