“If I could only paint you like that! Yes—I deserve that you should hate me. Never mind who planned the thing, I should have known better than to soil my hands with a deception,” said Wopse. “As for the Duke——”
“The Duke! Do I understand that that earwig in velveteen is my cousin Halcyon!” Susanna’s voice was very cold.
“Yes. I am a kind of cousin, too,” said Wopse.
“But not that kind. Those—those designs—the work on the ceiling. They are really yours?” Susanna asked.
“Mine, of course. Do you think that fellow could have done them?” cried Wopse, firing up. “I’ve risen at four every morning to work at them, and——”
“And you ride splendidly, and you’re a crack shot and polo player, and you’re going to win for the county Eleven on Thursday,” came breathlessly from Susanna.
“Ah, you won’t care to look at me now!” said the depressed Wopse.
“Won’t I?” Susanna’s eyes were dancing, her cheeks were glowing, she pirouetted on the moss-grown ground of the avenue and dropped a little curtsey to the painter. “When doing it will drive father and grandmother and Alaric and the Earwig wild with rage.... When—when I like doing it, too! When——” she stooped, and her lips were very near Wopse’s cheek—“when I love doing it!”
“Oh, Susanna!” cried the painter.
“My dear Halcyon!” said Lord Beaumaris, peering short-sightedly upwards through a maze of scaffolding. “I think you may as well come down.”