As she turned the picture toward the wall, Delilah decided, "Mary Ballard is worth a hundred of such women as this."
"A woman like you is worth a hundred of them," Colin stated deliberately.
Delilah flushed faintly. Colin Quale was giving to her something which no other man had given. And she liked it.
"Do you know what you are doing to me?" she said, as she sat down by the window. "You are making me think that I am like the pictures you paint of me."
"You are," was the quiet response; "it's just a matter of getting beneath the surface."
There was a pause during which his fingers and eyes were busy with the shining samples—then Delilah said: "If Leila and her father go to Germany in May, I'm going to get Dad to go too. I don't suppose you'd care to join us? You'll want to get back to that girl in Amesbury or Newburyport, or whatever it is."
"What girl?"
"The one you are going to marry."
"There is no girl," said Colin quietly, "in Amesbury or Newburyport; there never has been and there never will be." Coming close, he held against her cheek a sample of soft pale yellow. "Leila Dick wears that a lot, but it's not for you." He stood back and gazed at her meditatively.
"Colin," she protested, "when you look at me that way, I feel like a wooden model."