"No," she cried, "you shall not promise me. I'll form a solemn, committee of your friends—your real friends—and we'll come some day and exact an oath from you, individually and collectively. That will be much more impressive. I must go now," she went on reproachfully, "and you have shown me nothing that you've brought back with you. Is there anything here?" In her anxiety to put space between them she bad walked to the furthest and untidiest corner of the room, where half a dozen canvases leaned with their faces to the wall.
Kendal watched her, tilt them forward one after another with a kind or sick impotence.
"Absolutely nothing!" he cried.
But it was too late—she had paused in her running commentary on the pictures, she was standing looking, absolutely silent, at the last but one. She had come upon it—she had found it—his sketch of the scene in Lady Halifax's drawing-room.
"Oh yes, there is something!" she said at last, carefully drawing it out and holding it at arm's length. "Something that is quite new to me. Do you mind if I put it in a better light?" Her voice had wonderfully changed; it expressed a curious interest and self-control. In effect that was all she felt for the moment; she had a dull consciousness of a blow, but did not yet quite understand being struck. She was gathering herself together as she looked, growing conscious of her hurt and of her resentment. Kendal was silent, cursing himself inwardly for not having destroyed the thing the day after he had let himself do it.
"Yes," she said, placing it on an easel at an oblique angle with the north window of the room, "it is better so."
She stepped back a few paces to look at it, and stood immovable, searching every detail. "It does you credit," she said slowly; "immense credit. Oh, it is very clever!"
"Forgive me," Kendal said, taking a step toward her. "I am afraid it doesn't But I never intended you to see it."
"Is it an order?" she asked calmly. "Ah, but that would not have been fair—not to show it to me first!"
Kendal crimsoned. "I beg," he said earnestly, "that you will not think such a thing possible. I intended to destroy it—I don't know why I have not destroyed it!"