“If you like,” said Noel.
“I thank you very much:”
He shifted his easel, and began to draw. She felt flattered, and a little fluttered. He was so pale, and had a curious, half-fed look, which moved her.
“Have you been long in England?” she said presently.
“Ever since the first months of the war.”
“Do you like it?”
“I was very homesick at first. But I live in my pictures; there are wonderful things in London.”
“Why did you want to sketch me?”
The painter smiled again. “Mademoiselle, youth is so mysterious. Those young trees I have been painting mean so much more than the old big trees. Your eyes are seeing things that have not yet happened. There is Fate in them, and a look of defending us others from seeing it. We have not such faces in my country; we are simpler; we do not defend our expressions. The English are very mysterious. We are like children to them. Yet in some ways you are like children to us. You are not people of the world at all. You English have been good to us, but you do not like us.”
“And I suppose you do not like us, either?”