"I should love it. Only you won't paint my soul, will you, Maryon, as you did Mrs. T. Van Decken's?"
His eyes narrowed a little.
"I don't know, Nan. I think I should rather like to paint it. Your soul would be an intricate piece of work."
"I'm sure it wouldn't make nearly as nice a picture as my face. I think it's rather a plain soul."
"The answer to that is obvious," he replied lightly. "Well, I shall talk to Trenby about the portrait. I suppose permission from headquarters would be advisable?"
Nan made a small grimace.
"Of the first importance, my friend."
Rather to Nan's surprise, Roger quite readily gave permission for Rooke to paint her portrait. In fact, he appeared openly delighted with the idea that her charming face should be permanently transferred to canvas. In his own mind he had promptly decided to buy the portrait when completed and add it to the picture gallery at the Hall, where many a lovely Trenby of bygone generations looked down, smiling or sad, from the walls.
The sittings were begun out of doors in the tranquil seclusion of the rose garden, Rooke motoring across to Mallow almost daily, and Nan posed in a dozen different attitudes while he made sketches of her both in line and colour, none of which, however, satisfied him in the least.
"My dear Nan," he exclaimed one day, as he tore up a rough charcoal sketch in disgust, "you're the worst subject I've ever encountered—-or else my hand has lost its cunning! I can't get you—you—in the very least!"