Tor di Rocca was looking at her now with the old insolent smile in his red-brown eyes. “Ah, you said ‘Never!’ but presently you will come.”
So he left them.
Olive expected to be “poored,” but Camille, as it seemed, deliberately took no notice of her. She watched him picking a stick of charcoal from the accumulation of odd brushes, pens and pencils on the table.
“What a handsome devil it is. Lean, lithe and brown. He should go naked as a faun; such things roamed about the primeval woods seeking what they might devour. I wish I had asked him to sit for me.”
He went to his easel and began to sketch a head on the canvas he had prepared for the Rosamund. “He has the short Neronic upper lip,” he murmured.
Olive lost patience. “I wonder you had the heart to risk spoiling its contour,” she said resentfully.
“With my fist, you mean?”
“I—I am very sorry—” she began. He saw that she was crying, and he was perplexed, not quite understanding what she wanted of him.
“What am I to say to you?” He came over and sat down beside her, and she let him hold her hand. “I know so little—not even your name. I have asked no questions, but of course I saw— Why do you not go back to your friends?”
She dried her eyes. “I have cousins in Milan, but I have lost their address, and they would not be able to help me. I have burnt my boats. I used to give lessons, but it was not easy to find pupils, and then I met Rosina. I cannot go back to being a governess after being a model. I have done no wrong, but no one would have me if they knew. You see one has to go on—”