Eagerly she came to his side, and stood with her hand on his shoulder.
“Show me, dear,” she said. Her tenderness was like a knife in him.
“See that line of mountains in the far distance, wonderful blue at the sky line, and down the sides in the hollows and at the base purple. My dear! Such purple—shot through with rose tints!” He grew enthusiastic.
“There, that will do, Hugh!” she said, taking away his sketch book from him and patting his head as if he were a little boy. “Lunch just now, and then you will get at your picture right after. You are starved. Your lunch is spoiled, I fear, but it is the very best Jinny could do.”
All through lunch he talked eagerly, excitedly, about his picture. His art work always excited him, and when a scene really gripped his imagination he was mad to be at it. He hurried through his meal, seized his sketch book, and in a minute was busy with his palette. An hour later his wife came in to him and, sitting down in an easy chair, watched him at his work. Back and forward, with quick step and with eager, clever fingers, he touched and re-touched, spreading upon the canvas the scene of the morning, with never a pause and never an erasure. He had rarely worked so surely, rarely with such mastery in his brush.
“Splendid! Hugh, wonderful!” said his wife. Something in her voice arrested his swiftly moving brush. He faced about and glanced at her. Her face was ashen. His heart sank with a terrible fear—did she suspect anything?
“Marion, you are ill,” he cried, flinging down his brush and palette. “What is it?”
“Nothing much, dear,” she said wearily. “I am tired a bit. The morning has been a little trying.”
“What do you mean, darling?”
“The Indian woman,” she said faintly.