She was facing her husband now; but something in his aspect made her feel suddenly ashamed of using small weapons against a nature too magnanimous to retaliate. And, without giving him time to answer, she went on, a little hurriedly, "Eldred, if this intolerable state of things means that you really imagine I am—how does one put anything so detestable?—growing . . . too fond of Mr Richardson, you can set your mind at rest. Morality apart, you are much too masterful, too large—in every way—to leave room for any one else in a woman's heart, once she has let you in."
"Thank you," Lenox answered, in a non-committal tone. But a shadow passed from his face, and she saw it.
"Of course I know it has been rather marked this last week. But that was simply because for the moment he and my picture were the same thing. Being absorbed in one meant being absorbed in the other. To produce a living portrait, one needs to get inside the subject of it as far as possible. At least, I do. And on the whole, I think my method is justified by the result!"
But Lenox, as he stood listening, experienced fresh proof of man's innate spirit of perversity. For many days past he had been angered by the suspicion that in this affair of portrait painting, the subject counted for too much;—and now, when he ought to have been relieved, he found his anger rekindled to white heat by Quita's frank confession that his friend—whose heart had been wrenched from him by her so-called 'method'—counted for nothing at all. For one ignoble instant, he was tempted to break through every restraining consideration and lash her with the truth.
The fact that he did not answer her at once puzzled Quita.
"Do you understand now, mon ami?" she asked, coming a step closer.
"I was absorbed in an interesting subject. It is over—voilà tout."
"No, Quita; I do not understand," he answered, repressed heat hardening his voice and face more than he knew. "To a mere soldier it all sounds rather inhuman; and I can only say that if you find it so necessary to 'get inside' your subjects, as you express it, you had better make women and children your speciality, and let us poor devils alone."
"Women and children? But, my dear—what a suggestion! One does not choose one's subjects to order. Women and children don't interest me. I have always preferred to paint men, and always shall."
"Then I'm afraid it may end in your having to drop portrait painting altogether."
That touched the artist to the quick. With a small gasp—as if he had struck her—she sank upon the arm of his big chair; her hands clasped, so that the knuckles stood out sharp and white; two spots of fire burning in her cheeks.