‘I did not calculate upon being so long,’ she said sweetly, at the same time throwing back her face and smiling. ‘But I—was longer than I expected.’
‘It seemed rather long,’ said Christopher gloomily, ‘but I don’t mind it.’
‘I am glad of that,’ said Ethelberta.
‘As you asked me to stay, I was very pleased to do so, and always should be; but I think that now I will wish you good-bye.’
‘You are not vexed with me?’ she said, looking quite into his face. ‘Mr. Ladywell is nobody, you know.’
‘Nobody?’
‘Well, he is not much, I mean. The case is, that I am sitting to him for a subject in which my face is to be used—otherwise than as a portrait—and he called about it.’
‘May I say,’ said Christopher, ‘that if you want yourself painted, you are ill-advised not to let it be done by a man who knows how to use the brush a little?’
‘O, he can paint!’ said Ethelberta, rather warmly. ‘His last picture was excellent, I think. It was greatly talked about.’
‘I imagined you to say that he was a mere nobody!’