Arpad turned scarlet, shoved the picture into a drawer, and, getting up quickly, confronted his visitor, who had only time to see that it was a portrait he was painting.
"Ah, it is you," he stammered, in an embarrassed voice. "I thought it was my mother."
"Aha, you are doing something you should not! Your mother does not allow you to paint; isn't that it? Well, it is a silly thing, I must say, for a pianoforte-player to spend his time painting; and what is the subject?"
"Oh, nothing—a flower!"
("What a lie!" thought Eveline; "it was a portrait.")
"Then if it is a flower, give it to me."
"I should rather not."
"But if it is only a flower?"
"I am not going to give it to you."
"Don't be so cross. Won't you ask me to sit down?"