She smiled a little ironically as he turned round to her.
"I will grant you anything," she replied; "Medora is not my portrait, but an ideal woman for whom you have borrowed my form and face."
"What will not an artist attempt to idealize?" asked Cornelius with a touch of embarrassment.
"Oh!" she observed very sweetly, "I do not mean to imply it was not required. Only if this were a portrait, I should object to having Daisy's eyes and brow given to me."
Cornelius became crimson, and felt that the artist had made the lover commit a blunder. He tried to pass it off carelessly.
"Ah!" he said, "you think that because I gave too dark a tint to the eyebrows, and in attempting to make the eyes look deep, rendered them rather grey—"
She smiled and rose.
"You are not going?" he asked with surprise.
"Why not, since you do not want me."
"No, do not; pray do not!" he entreated; he looked quite uneasy, and in his earnestness took both her hands in his. She withdrew them with an astonished and displeased air, and a look that fell on me.