“How many more sittings do you think it will take to finish the picture?” she asked, striving to get on safer ground.
“Only one or two, I suppose,” he answered morosely.
Such was Julien’s condition of mind after the last sitting that he actually left the precious portrait unguarded by neglecting to lock the door of the studio on going out, and the Bonnie Lassie and I, happening in, beheld it in its fulfillment. A slow flush burned its way upward in the Bonnie Lassie’s face as she studied it.
“He’s done it!” she exclaimed. “Flower and flame! Why did I ever take to sculpture? One can’t get that in the metal.”
“He’s done it,” I echoed.
“Of course, technically, it’s rather a sloppy picture.”
“It’s a glorious picture!” I cried.
“Naturally that,” returned the exasperating critic. “It always will be—when you paint with your heart’s blood.”
“Do you think your friend Bobbie appreciates the medium in which she’s presented?”
“If she doesn’t—which she probably does,” said the Bonnie Lassie, “she will find out something to her advantage when she sees me to-morrow. I’m going home to ‘phone her.”