"There's your picture!" he said. "Take it—and hang it in your 'admirable light'!" And he strode out of the room.
A long silence fell between the two who were left. Then Rooke, who was staring at the ruin of his work with his mouth twisted, into an odd, cynical smile, murmured beneath his breath:
"Sic transit . . ."
Once more the silence wrapped them round. Wan-faced and with staring eyes, Nan drew near the heap of mangled canvas.
At last:
"I can't bear it! I can't bear it!" she whispered, and a shuddering sob shook her slight frame from head to foot. "Oh, Maryon—"
She stretched her hands towards him gropingly, like a child that is frightened in the dark.
. . . Half an hour later found them still together, standing with linked hands. In Rooke's eyes there was a quiet light of triumph, while Nan's attitude betrayed a kind of hesitancy, as of one driven along strange and unknown ways.
"Then you'll come, Nan, you'll come?" he said eagerly.
"I'll come," she answered dully. "I can't bear my life any longer."