She looked at him inquiringly.
“The temperament that understands other people’s temperaments,” he added.
“How do you know?” she asked, smiling.
Lady Arabella was prancing on ahead down the corridor, and for the moment Michael and Gillian were alone.
“We artists learn to look for what lies below the surface. If your work is sincere, you find when you’ve finished a portrait that the soul of the sitter has revealed itself unmistakably.”
Gillian nodded.
“I’ve been told you’ve an almost diabolical genius for expressing just what a man or woman is really like—in character, I mean—in your portraits.”
“I can’t help it,” he said simply. “It comes—it reveals itself—if you paint sincerely.”
“And do you—always paint sincerely?”
He laughed.