“So you think me cruel, Miss Sweetland? Well, I dare say I deserve it! But would you be willing to make a personal sacrifice to induce me to give over my indolence and begin your cousin’s portrait?”
“Name it,” she replied, hopefully; and Florian said, in one of his daring moods:
“It is dull work painting from a photograph. I prefer living subjects when possible, and I have a great desire to copy your face for an ideal picture I mean to paint. Will you give me two sittings each week if I will promise to work all the intervening time on Mr. Maxwell’s portrait?”
Mae dimpled and blushed and looked inquiringly at her cousin, Mrs. Graham, who said, decisively:
“Yes, I will bring her twice a week for the sittings; and mind that you have Rolfe’s portrait commenced the next time we come.”
When Mae’s letter went across the sea, telling all this, Viola smiled roguishly to herself at the success of the design she had formed against Florian the day she first took Mae to his studio.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
“Whom first we love, you know, we seldom wed.”
The portrait of Rolfe Maxwell was finished, and awaited Viola’s return.
It hung upon Florian’s studio wall—a magnificent likeness of the handsome, dark-eyed original that would delight Viola’s tender heart.