Desha understood, but he felt that he had no fault to find. He changed the subject by saying:
“Have you any curios to show me? Anything new from abroad?”
“Yes, there, behind that curtain. Pray examine them at your leisure, and excuse me for going on with my work. It is one of my days of inspiration.”
He seized his brush and went doggedly to work on Viola’s portrait, while Desha retired behind the curtain, somewhat discomfited by his cool reception, and thinking:
“He has forgiven her, it seems, by his going on with her portrait, but I am still in his black books. Strange, when he certainly knows I was unconsciously his rival, and ought to give me the benefit of that knowledge.”
He examined the valuable curios with but a languid interest, while Florian, with his handsome brows drawn together in a vexed frown, and an angry gleam in his dark eyes, painted away with great energy on the beautiful head of his false love, thinking:
“The impudence of the fellow intruding here after stealing Viola from me!”
Suddenly a low, musical voice came to him from just inside the curtained door leading into the hall. It said, cordially:
“How well you paint from memory!”
Florian turned with a start and saw, facing him, the beautiful original of the portrait that was absorbing all his energy.