It represented a young girl, with the promise of womanhood on her gravely sweet lips, and in the depths of her eyes, half-sitting upon the crossed rails of the verandah. An ivory-white dress of Indian silk fell in shimmering folds to her feet. A dawn of clear amber made a tender background to the dull gold of her hair. Trailing sprays of the rose that ran riot over the house drooped towards her; and a pine branch, striking in abruptly, made an effective splash of shadow in an atmosphere palpitating with the promise of fuller light. The only intense bit of colour in the picture was the violet blue of Elsie Mayhew's eyes—eyes that looked into you and through you to some dream-world unsullied by the disconcerting realities of life, which seemed only awaiting the given moment to rush in and dispel the dream. For, as the sky gave promise of fuller light, so did the girl's spirit seem hovering on the verge of fuller knowledge.
Such at least was Quita's thought, as she stood silently appraising her brother's work; and it brought a contraction to her throat, a stinging sensation to her eyeballs.
"I congratulate you, Michel," said she softly. "You have never done anything to equal that. It is more than a portrait. It is an interpretation, or will be, when it is complete. Her hopeless little 'Button Quail' of a mother won't understand it in the least, but Colonel Mayhew will. I wonder if you know yourself how much you have put into it?"
"I know that I have put some superlative workmanship into it," he answered, looking upon the creation of his hand and brains with critical grey-green eyes, curiously out of keeping with an ill-formed and unrestrained mouth.
"Indeed you have. The thing is full of atmosphere, and your flesh tints are worthy of Perugino. You mean to give it to her?"
"Cela va sans dire. She wants it as a present for her father."
"Why not hang it first, at Home?"
"Afterwards, perhaps. If she permits."
"It is a big gift, Michel. It would fetch a high price; and we need money."
Michael shrugged his shoulders with all an artist's scorn of "the common drudge."