Fan hurried to the door and called through the keyhole, “Arthur, I must see you before you leave town.”
“Oh, Fan, is that you? I really beg your pardon,” he replied. “All right; make yourself comfortable, and I'll be with you in five minutes.”
Fan, left alone, began an inspection of her brother's “den,” about which she had often heard him speak, and the first object which took her attention was a brown-paper parcel lying on a chair against the wall. It was the parcel of novels she had returned to him a few days before, not yet opened. But when she looked round for that large collection of books, about which he had spoken to her, she found it not, nor anything in the way of literature except half a dozen volumes lying on the table, bearing Mudie's yellow labels on their covers. Near the chair on which the parcel was lying a large picture rested on the carpet, leaning against the wall. A sheet of tissue paper covered it, which her curiosity prompted her to remove, and then how great was her surprise at being confronted with her own portrait, exquisitely done in water-colours, half the size of life, and in a very beautiful silver frame. How it got there was a mystery, but not for one moment did she doubt that it was her own portrait; only it looked, she thought, so much more beautiful than the reality. She had never worn her hair in that picturesque way, nor had she ever possessed an evening dress; yet she appeared in a lovely pale-blue dress, her neck and arms bare, a delicate cream-coloured lace shawl on one arm resting on her shoulder.
She was still standing before it, smiling with secret pleasure, and blushing a little, when Eden, coming in, surprised her.
“I see you have made a discovery, Fan,” he said.
She turned quickly round, the bright colour suffusing her cheeks, and held out her hand to him. He was pale and haggard, but the strange excited look had left his face, and he smiled pleasantly as he took her hand and touched her finger-tips to his lips.
“Why did you come to me here?” he asked, beginning to move restlessly about the room.
“To give you that assurance with my own lips you asked for—I could not let you go away without it. Will you not kiss me, Arthur?”
“No, not now. Do sit down, Fan. I thought that you would only feel the greatest aversion to me, yet here you are in my own den trying to—You imagine, I suppose, that a man is a kind of moral barrel-organ, and that when the tune he has been grinding out for a long time gets out of date, all he has got to do is to change the old cylinder for a new one and grind out a fresh tune. Do you understand me, Fan?”
She considered his words for a little while and then answered, “Arthur, I think it will be better—if you will not avoid me—if you will believe that all my thoughts of you are pleasant thoughts. I do not think you can be blamed for feeling towards me as you do.” She reddened and cast down her eyes, dimmed with tears, then continued, “It was only that chance discovery that makes you think so badly of yourself.”