Warner began the full-length portrait—which has now become famous under the title "Philippa Passes"—in the main hall of the Château.
A clear light fell through the northern and eastern windows; from the golden gloom above generations of De Moidreys looked down upon the fair girl who stood in their great hall as tranquil and unconscious as though born within the carved gray walls which they had built or added to in years long dead.
He had chosen for the pose a moment when, as she was in the act of passing in front of him, a word from him had checked her and caused her to turn her head.
There he held her as she had paused, poised on the very edge of motion, her enchanting head turned and the grey eyes meeting his.
Already on his canvas he had caught her; an odd sensation of cold, clear-minded exaltation seemed to possess him as he worked—a calm, strange certainty of himself and of the work in hand.
There was no hesitation, no doubt within him, only a sustained excitement under unerring control. He knew what he wanted; he knew that he was doing methodically what he wanted to do with every unhurried brush stroke.
There was no halting, no searching, no checks; his mind had never been so absolutely in control of his hand; his hand never so automatically obedient, his intelligence never before so clear, so logical, so steady under the incessant lightning of inspiration.
Conscious of the tremendous tension, he knew he was equal to it—knew that no weakness of impulse or of sentiment could swerve him, unsteady him, meddle with his brain or his nerves or his hand.
Nothing could stop him from doing what he had to do, nothing could tamper with this newborn confidence which had suddenly possessed him with its unlooked for magic.
He was painting Philippa as he had known her from the beginning; as he had prophesied; as she had been revealed—a young girl with grey eyes and chestnut hair, fine of limb, with the shadow of a smile on her wistful lips, and "her soul as clean as a flame."