After a few minutes' more reflection, I went to look for her. I thought I would try to soften the effect of my last words to her, but I could not find her, and full of a sense of dissatisfaction, I went on at last upstairs to the studio.
When Veronica came into the room I realised the full extent of my folly the previous afternoon. Hitherto her manner had been respectful and demure enough on the surface, though always with a suggestion of veiled insolent self-confidence. Now the veil was thrown off, she was assured of herself, and showed it.
She came up to me, kissed me as a matter of course, and when I barely returned the kiss, she laughed openly and said coolly.
"What's the matter, Trevor? Viola been lecturing you?"
To hear her use Viola's name seemed to freeze me.
"Be quiet," I said sharply.
The girl merely made a grimace and began to take off her hat and let down her hair.
The morning passed dully. I did not paint well. The impersonal state of mind in which alone good artistic work can be produced was not with me.
When I went down to luncheon I found Viola looking very pale and ill. This made me feel cross. Ill-health very rarely excites pity or sympathy in men, but nearly always a feeling of vexation and annoyance. "Why should she worry herself?" I asked myself angrily, "when there was nothing to worry about."
She had generally a very warm pink colour glowing in her face, which disappeared if anything worried or grieved her. It was gone now, and I knew it was my words of the morning that had driven it away.