"There's nothing you mightn't see," she said, proudly, ignoring her previous outburst. "You or anybody else, even with a microscope."
"No, of course not. Only you'd say microscopes aren't fair. Well, perhaps they're not. And portrait-painting is a very simple matter. It's not the black art. But if I go on with this, you are to let me do it in my own way. You're not to look at it."
"Not even when you're not at work?"
"Not once, morning, noon, or night, till I invite you to. You were always a good fellow, Mary. You'll keep your word."
"No, I won't look at it," said Mary.
Thereafter she stayed away from the barn, not only when he was painting, but at other times, and Wilmer missed her. He worked very fast, and made his plans for sailing, and Aunt Celia loudly bemoaned his stinginess in cutting short the summer. One day, after breakfast, he sought out Mary again in the garden. She was snipping Coreopsis for the dinner table, but she did it absently, and Jerome noted the heaviness of her eyes.
"What's the trouble?" he asked, abruptly, and she was shaken out of her late constraint. She looked up at him with a piteous smile.
"Nothing much," she said. "It doesn't matter. I suppose it's fate. He has written his letter."
"Marshby?"
"You knew he got his appointment?"