“Very well,” said Brinkley. “Then we will get on.”
He removed from his easel and carefully covered the portrait upon which he had been working. Then he put up a fresh cardboard and sat down, inviting Matt to do the same.
With the disappearance of the Sunday clothes the girl’s stiffness seemed to have disappeared also, and she became again a veritable child of Nature. She looked like a shaggy young pony fresh from a race on the mountain side as she threw herself on the ground in an attitude which was all picturesqueness and beauty. Then with her plump sunburnt hand she carelessly began to pull up the grass, while her black eyes searched alternately the prospect and the painter’s face.
Presently she spoke.
“He says you’re a pryin’ scoundrel,” she said.
Brinkley looked up and smiled.
“Who is he, Matt?”
“Mr. Monk,” she replied, and gave a jerk with her head in the direction of Monkshurst.
“Oh, indeed,” said Brinkley. “It is my amiable equestrian friend, is it? I’m sure I’m much obliged to him. And when, may I ask, did he bore you with his opinion of me?”
“Last night, when he come to see William Jones. He said I wasn’t to be took no more, ‘cause you was a scoundrel poking and prying.”