“I don’t understand.”
She had never heard him speak so angrily. Yes, he was really angry. His artistic pride was wounded.
“It’s very clever, very clever,” she stammered, “but I—I don’t like the way you have depicted me. It isn’t the nicest—me.”
His eyes were very light and very cold as he faced her, and suddenly they seemed to be bright and shallow, like those of a bird. His lips made a thin red line, and a hardness of the lines of the jaw became noticeable.
“Frank, don’t you understand?” she pleaded. “There, in the picture, you have made me an amoureuse, une grande amoureuse, and I—I don’t think I’m really that.” Then a little wildly—“It may be in me, I may have it in my blood, but I don’t want it to come out.... I’m sorry, Frank, but I don’t like it.”
She saw, as she looked in his face, that he did not understand, that she could never make him understand. She had mortally wounded his pride. He would never forgive the thrust.
Without a word he noisily pushed back the easel. Mechanically she sank down on the divan again, and as she disturbed one of the cushions, a piece of paper became uncovered. Before she realized that it might be private, her eyes had taken in the wording. It was the Bridgemans’ telegram—“Sorry wife ill. Cannot come to-morrow. Bridgeman.”
With a last kick the easel was lodged in its place against the wall. She put the cushion over the telegram again, as he came back to the centre of the room like a sulky child, a cigarette drooping at the corner of his mouth.
“You’re extremely difficult to please,” he said sarcastically. “I’m glad all my sitters are not so particular. You can’t say I haven’t done full justice to your looks.”
That was all he could make out of her explanation, her confession! It was a shock, but it had the effect of steadying her. Her voice was very quiet and composed as she replied: