Involuntarily she put a hand over her wildly beating heart, then smiled at her action and at once felt better.
“I must finish,” she told herself, stoutly, as she resumed her task.
She was painting a picture. The circumstances under which she worked were strange, almost beyond belief. When Johnny had suggested an underseas picture, she had been truly thrilled. But she had shuddered and said, “No!—I’d never dare do that!”
But—given one glimpse of the setting for such a picture, she had become greatly excited. “Such colors! Such contrasts! Yes—I surely must paint it!” she had exclaimed.
The task now was well begun. She was wearing tennis shoes and standing on sand. Before her a great anchor, red with rust, leaned against a huge boulder. Beside the anchor was a copper-bound chest. One might easily have imagined that this chest contained Spanish treasure—gold, diamonds, rubies. But it was empty, as Doris already had discovered.
The gray rock that supported the anchor was festooned with vegetation of rare hues—red, orange, pink, yellow, and deep dark blue, mingled in profusion. In and out among these plants darted small creatures which might almost have been birds. The girl was wearing a great brass helmet which hid her face. She was looking through glass, at a world unbelievably strange and beautiful.
Above her, its shadow looming darkly, lay the Sea Nymph. Descending from the boat was a long tube that supplied her with air. A constant trickle of bubbles escaped from beneath her helmet. Her easel was weighted down, and her canvas specially treated to resist water. Her brushes and colors were the same she had used on the sunny, tropical shores.
But the scene! How she thrilled to it! And she was painting it as truly and exactly as she could. Perhaps thousands who never had been beneath the surface of the water would look at this picture and wonder at its coloring.
Thrilled at the thought, she painted more industriously than ever, forgetting entirely the blue shadow. She had searched long for a spot that would make the most interesting picture. She had wandered, fascinated, until she had chanced upon this anchor and strong box, lost so long before.
It was indeed wonderful. With a background of ivory and pink coral, purple plumes of seaweed, fringes of lace-like anemone, in a framework of water-washed rocks—it made a scene not soon to be forgotten.