"I think it uncommonly good," he says, staring at it as if he would pierce the paper.
Then there is a brief silence, during which Miss Avon boldly adventures upon this amateur's tea.
"I beg your pardon," he says, after a bit, "it is none of my business, you know—but you don't really mean that you are going back to London?"
"If I am allowed," she answers with a smile.
"I am sure you will disappoint your friends most awfully," says he, in quite an earnest manner. "I know they had quite made up their minds you were to stay the whole time. It would be very unfair of you. And my uncle: he would break his heart if you were to go."
"They are all very kind to me," was her only answer.
"Look here," he says, with a most friendly anxiety. "If—if—it is only about business—about pictures I mean—I really beg your pardon for intermeddling——"
"Oh," said she, frankly, "there is no secret about it. In fact, I want everybody to know that I am anxious to sell my pictures. You see, as I have got to earn my own living, shouldn't I begin at once and find out what it is like?"
"But look here," he said eagerly, "if it is a question of selling pictures, you should trust to my uncle. He is among a lot of men in the West of Scotland, rich merchants and people of that sort, who haven't inherited collections of pictures, and whose hobby is to make a collection for themselves. And they have much too good sense to buy spurious old masters, or bad examples for the sake of the name: they prefer good modern art, and I can tell you they are prepared to pay for it too. And they are not fools, mind you; they know good pictures. You may think my uncle is very prejudiced—he has his favourite artists—and—and believes in Tom Galbraith, don't you know—but I can assure you, you won't find many men who know more about a good landscape than he does; and you would say so if you saw his dining room at Denny-mains."
"I quite believe that," said she, beginning to put up her materials: she had done her morning's work.