There was a crimson velvet curtain hanging before a picture, and he drew aside the folds.
"This is—Uncle James,"
The candlelight shone against the canvas, and glittered in dancing little waves over the name-plate on the frame.
"Portrait of the Artist, by Himself."
"Was it a comfort to her, I wonder?" my lover said, his thoughts only half with the past.
"A torturing comfort—the kind a woman like her demands," I answered. "She had to go to it every hour in every day—and look at it—to make her heart ache, because it was only a picture. She was a human being—as well as a novelist, so that such as this could only add to her anguish. She wanted a living face——"
"She wanted—this?"
He set the candlestick down and put both arms round me.
"She wanted—this?" he breathed.
His face was close above mine-waiting for the first kiss. A moment later it came—descending gently, like some blessed holy thing. And it was that.