"Darling, you do like it, don't you? I can't complete it till you give me a few sittings; but then—it will be my masterpiece. I shall never show it, at home, though. It's too much a part of myself . . . my very inmost self."
And he could not withhold the demonstration that such a confession provoked.
"Oh, my dear," he said at last, without releasing her. "You made too little of me once; and now you're making too much. I'm not worth it all."
She put a hand on his lips.
"Be quiet! I won't hear you when you talk so. Look properly at my picture now. You haven't told me it's good."
"Of course it's good. Amazingly good. But . . ." he laughed, a short contented laugh—"it's beyond me how you could be misguided enough to waste your remarkable talent in perpetuating anything so ugly!"
Her smile hinted at superior knowledge; yet she paid his obvious sincerity the compliment of not contradicting his final statement.
"In the first place, because I love it. And in the second place, because, for all true artists, who see in form and colour just a soul's attempts at self-expression, there is more essential beauty in certain kinds . . . of ugliness, than in the most faultless symmetry of lines and curves. One is almost tempted to say that there is no such thing as actual ugliness; that it is all a matter of understanding, of seeing deep enough. For instance, I find that essential beauty I spoke of in Mrs Olliver's face."
"Ah . . . so do I; of a rare quality."
"Well then, dear stupid, allow me to find it in yours also!"