“I don’t know,” said Allestree sharply, “and I don’t care!”
Gerty rose abruptly and picked up her parasol. “Robert,” she said with feeling, “you’re like a bear with a sore head, and I always said you had such a nice disposition; I should have fallen in love with you myself if I hadn’t had a snub nose and freckles.”
In spite of himself Robert laughed. “Was that an insurmountable barrier, Gerty?”
“Certainly; snub nosed girls never fall in love with artists, it isn’t profitable!” and Gerty moved toward the door.
As she did so she glanced out of the open window. “There’s Rose now,” she said and beckoned gayly; “she’ll come up and make amends for my blunders!” she laughed.
Allestree colored hotly, aware that he had betrayed himself; the amazing indelicacy of Gerty’s raillery was not inconsistent with her usual careless freedom of speech which gave much unwitting pain and had cost her correspondingly dear more than once, yet it made him wince to encounter it, to feel her thoughtless probe sink into the dearest recesses of his heart and be powerless to resent it. Frankness, after all, is frequently a doubtful virtue; like a two-edged sword it cleaves both ways and leaves no healing balsam in its train. It was Margaret White who always said that an expert and comfortable liar was an absolute blessing to society.
Meanwhile, Rose had dismounted at the door and come up stairs with no other motive than a desire to escape her own society. The sight of Gerty at the window furnished her with an excuse, and she came in still pale, in spite of her swift gallop by the river, and with a look in her eyes which shocked Allestree; he had never seen pain in her look before. Miss English greeted her affectionately; at heart she was really penitent.
“I came up here to see Lily Osborne’s picture,” she declared, “and Robert has sent it off already! Isn’t it a shame? I hadn’t seen it.”
“It was excellent,” Rose replied soberly, taking the chair Allestree pushed forward for her; “she really is a beauty, Gerty; I like to say that to show myself just and broad-minded!”
“That makes two pictures Robert has finished this winter;—yours and the serpent’s, as I call Lily Osborne, and now he is nearly done with Margaret.”