Ah, that was what he liked about her. She had not revenged herself on Nature by making hideous caricatures of Nature's face; she did not draw in milk-and-water colors, and she did not strum. She had none of the exasperating talents, the ludicrous ambitions of the amateur; she was altogether innocent of intellectual vanity.
"That reminds me," said she, "that I've seen nothing of those wonderful sketches you said you'd show me."
He had clean forgotten the things. Well, he could hardly do better than exhibit them; it would keep her quiet, and save him from perilous personalities.
At first he thought the exhibition was going to give her more pain than pleasure. He sat beside her, and she took the sketches from him gingerly, one by one, and looked at them without a word. A visible nervousness possessed her; her pulses clamored, she seemed to struggle with her own unsteady breathing. Once, when in the transfer of a drawing her hand brushed against his, she drew it back again as if it had dashed against a flame. Durant had noticed once or twice before that she avoided his touch.
Suddenly she awoke out of the agony of her consciousness. One picture had held her longer than the rest.
"It's beautiful—beautiful," she murmured.
"I'm glad you like it," said Durant, pleased at her first sign of admiration.
"Oh, I don't mean your picture—I mean the place."
"It's not a very good picture perhaps——"
"I don't know whether it's good or bad; it seems to me rather bad, though I can't say what's wrong with it. It looks unfinished."