‘Finer things? Oh, yes, perhaps; but this homely beauty touches me as no other sight could do. Something about a great sketch of green like this always affects me curiously. I love these wide fields.’
‘Yes, I remember your saying so,’ said Rosalie. The ice was broken now and she could talk to him freely, even taking courage to broach a subject which had much occupied her thoughts lately. ‘You told me, you know, how pleased you were at the sight of the cornfield in—in my picture.’
He did not turn towards her, and continued to scan the mead; but over his brown face she saw the colour rush quickly.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said; ‘of course I remember telling you about it.’
‘I wanted to ask you was—was the picture a very large one; and was it well painted?’
‘Yes, very large indeed, and beautifully painted. There was an iron railing in front of it because people pressed round it so. I was told it was the picture of the year.’
‘Was it?’ cried Rosalie; and at the note of delight in her voice he turned and looked at her with a smile. Her cheeks were pink with excitement, her eyes shining. ‘Oh!’ she cried, with a sigh of longing, ‘I would give anything to see it.’
‘I have a little print of it here,’ returned he impulsively; ‘I cut it out of a paper. It will give you some idea of it, though of course a very poor one.’
In another moment he partly withdrew from its enclosure the print in question, holding the envelope firmly in his own hand, however, so that the charred margin was hidden.
‘See,’ he said, pointing with his disengaged hand, ‘there is your house—over there in the corner, and here are your men, and here, under the piled-up sheaves, are you. But of course the figure in the picture is far more like you.’