"Need you ask? The first remark ever made upon the subject: 'It is not good that the man should be alone.'"
A dull flush showed under Michael's sallow akin.
"C'est à dire, il faut se ranger!" he said with an embarrassed laugh. "Well . . . find me a woman who understands and inspires me like yourself, and it is possible,—I do not say probable,—that I may yet fulfil the whole duty of man. If one could only suggest a five years' contract . . !"
"Michel! You are incorrigible; and I have preached in vain! Besides, it is not a wife of my sort you need, I thought you found that out last year; and . . . I think so still. If not, why have you stayed on here? And why did you make that exquisite pastel of her portrait?"
Michael's eyes seemed to demand an answer from the accusing picture; and there was an instant of silence.
"I stayed on here," he said at length, "chiefly because, lacking you, I seem to lack initiative; and I painted that . . well, as a memento of my best bit of work, and of a dream, more delectable than most . . . while it lasted; but none the less . . a dream."
"Yet you have seen a good deal of her this season, one way and another."
"Yes. In spite of the Button Quail!"
"And it would hurt you it she were to marry another man?"
Michael frowned. "There is no other man, since Malcolm went home."