“She’s a great friend of ours,” Sally interpolated, in childish pride, from behind. “I expect you’ve heard her play, haven’t you?”
Mrs. Crawford had. She recognised the genius of the picture, which had so exquisitely caught and imprisoned the genius of the subject.
“Of course; who hasn’t? A marvellous player. And a marvellous picture.”
“It’s Eileen all over,” said Eddy, who knew it of old.
“Hugh bought it, you know,” said Jane. “And when he died Eileen sent it back to me. I thought perhaps you and Eddy,” she turned to Molly, “might care to have it for a wedding-present, with ‘Undine.’ ”
Molly thanked her shyly, flushing a little. She would have preferred to refuse ‘Life,’ but her never-failing courtesy and tenderness for people’s feelings drove her to smile and accept.
It was then that someone knocked on the studio door. Sally went to open it; cried, “Oh, Eileen,” and drew her in, an arm about her waist.
She was not very like Jane’s drawing of her just now. The tragic elements of Life had conquered and beaten down its brilliance and joy; the rounded white cheeks were thin, and showed, instead of dimples, the fine structure of the face and jaw; the great deep blue eyes brooded sombrely under sad brows; she drooped a little as she stood. It was as if something had been quenched in her, and left her as a dead fire. The old flashing smile had left only the wan, strange ghost of itself. If Jane had drawn her now, or any time since the middle of August, she would rather have called the drawing “Wreckage.” To Eddy and all her friends she and her wrecked joy, her quenched vividness, stabbed at a pity beyond tears.
Molly looked at her for a moment, and turned rosy red all over her wholesome little tanned face, and bent over a picture near her.
Mrs. Crawford looked at her, through her, above her, and said to Jane, “Thank you so much for a delightful afternoon. We really must go now.”