"I think it's all right, if you want to return the cheque, which there's no real need to do, since Burton bought the thing with his eyes open."
"I know, but there is a feeling he was somehow deceived. I would rather return it, I think. I only want the seventy-five pounds I asked really, but I don't dare to bring that in, because it would betray the dealer. It would strike Burton probably, then, that the man acted as he did."
She put the note in an envelope and addressed it at Everest's dictation, and on their way to the restaurant they posted it. Everest meditated in silence on her action. It was just what he had expected of her. He saw that of the business, worldly, trader's instinct, which was so marked a feature of the Rector's character, there was not a trace in Regina. She had the aristocrat's outlook on things, similar to his own, and he admired the quick, decided way she had instantly refused to be even the passive party to a mild deceit, by which she was to profit considerably. That Burton had considered her picture worth five hundred pounds, and valued it at that, pleased him also greatly, and in his ears rang the words of the connoisseur, repeated by the dealer:
"She will go very far, if some confounded love business doesn't cripple her."
And suddenly, besieged by many thoughts, he turned to her, as she sat beside him in the taxi, and kissed her impetuously, and crushed her up to him, taking the girl by surprise. But she was always ready for his caresses, and put her arm up round his neck, and kissed him back, although it was ruffling her hair, and crushing to death the tea-roses she had pinned at her breast.
The next day, while they were having tea together in the studio, where he had been showing her his work, she received Burton's answer, enclosing the original cheque:
"My dear Young Lady,—Pardon this form of address. I am sure you must be very young to be so honest. I paid five hundred pounds for your picture, and it's more than worth it. I had an advance offer on it to-day.
"Go to work, and paint me another as soon as you can. Any subject, and the price to be five hundred pounds. Your admirer,
"Charles Burton."
"I am so glad, Everest!" she exclaimed, the brilliant light he knew so well leaping up in her eyes. "A thousand pounds! I need not spend more than that in a year, and so be no expense whatever to you."
Everest laughed.
"My sweet, no; but if you cost me twenty thousand a year, I would be delighted to pay it!"