Yes, there they all were and Lena’s picture was on top. “Really the best of the lot,” Norma thought. She was not surprised.
“About my films?” She hesitated.
“Oh, yes! I have done these, too,” he exclaimed with sudden enthusiasm. “They’re very good. You really understand timing, light, grouping, and all that. Some of these village pictures, they are excellent. With your permission I shall retain three films for a short time only, that I may make enlargements.”
“That—that’s all right,” Norma replied. She was looking at the pictures one by one and at the same time counting them.
In the end, she drew in a deep breath. There should have been twenty-four. One was missing. “And that one,” she thought with a start, “is the one I took of the Spanish hairdresser at Fort Des Moines.
“What a fool I was to let this man do them!” she told herself.
“There are only twenty-three prints here,” she suggested, trying to keep her voice on an even scale.
“Twenty-three good pictures out of twenty-four!” he exclaimed. “This is remarkable for an amateur, my dear. What should one expect?”
She wanted to say, “You are telling a lie. That was a good picture. Taken in bright light, time—one twenty-fifth of a second and shutter half open, I couldn’t have failed.”
She said nothing of the sort. Instead she said: