‘It—it’s very nice,’ she stammered, ‘but I miss YOU.’
‘She only means, you know,’ I rushed in, ‘that you’ve put in everything that was never there before. Accuracy of detail, you know, and so forth. ‘Pon my word, there’s some drawing in that!’
‘No,’ said Dora, calmly, ‘what I complain of is that he has left out everything that was there before. But he has won the gold medal, and I congratulate him.’
‘Well,’ I said, uneasily, ‘don’t congratulate me. I didn’t do it. Positively I am not to blame.’
‘His Excellency says that it reminds him of an incident in one of Mrs. Steel’s novels,’ said Armour, just turning his head to ascertain His Excellency’s whereabouts.
‘Dear me, so it does,’ I exclaimed, eagerly, ‘one couldn’t name the chapter—it’s the general feeling.’ I went on to discourse of the general feeling. Words came generously, questions with point, comments with intelligence. I swamped the situation and so carried it off.
‘The Viceroy has bought the thing,’ Armour went on, looking at Dora, ‘and has commissioned me to paint another. The only restriction he makes is—’
‘That it shall be of the same size?’ asked Dora.
‘That it must deal with some phase of native life.’
Miss Harris walked to a point behind us, and stood there with her eyes fixed upon the picture. I glanced at her once; her gaze was steady, but perfectly blank. Then she joined us again, and struck into the stream of my volubility.