'Thought of whom? I was thinking that Loswa has lost something of his originality, of his singularity: what he has produced this year is all banal.'
'Or seems so. That is always the Nemesis which overtakes a mere trick of manner; when once it ceases to startle it becomes commonplace. That sketch is so admirable because it is no trick: it was a genuine inspiration of the moment. Loswa was never so natural before or since.'
He spoke indifferently, but he was looking at her with concealed anxiety. Perchance it was a propitious hour in which to tell her of the fate of Damaris.
'Do you ever think of that child?' he said abruptly.
'Of what child?' she asked.
'Of the one for whom you predicted the future of Desclée?' he answered with a movement of his hand towards the picture.
She looked at the portrait with an effort at recollection. She had really forgotten the whole matter; it had been such a trivial incident to her, though so momentous to the other actor in it. He saw that her forgetfulness was quite unfeigned. She went up to the sketch and looked closely at it, drawing on one of her long gloves as she did so.
'Ah, yes; I remember now. A little fisher-girl who interested you, and whom you took home one night over the sea in a most romantic fashion. What of her? Has she married her shipwright? Was it a shipwright? Do you want me to give her some nuptial present, or a baptismal cup? All the idyls end in one's having to buy something ugly at a silversmith's!'
'I told you once before she did not marry the boat-builder—the shipwright, as you call him. You made it impossible for her to do so.'