Constance.—"Do you think I had better try to finish it?"
Bartlett.—"Oh, certainly. Why not? If it amuses you!"
Constance, perplexedly.—"Of course." Then with a sad significance: "But I know I am trying your patience too far. You have been so kind, so good, I can't forgive myself for annoying you."
Bartlett.—"It doesn't annoy me. I'm very glad to be useful to you."
Constance, demurely.—"I didn't mean painting; I meant—screaming." She lifts her eyes to Bartlett's face, with a pathetic, inquiring attempt at lightness, the slightest imaginable experimental archness in her self-reproach, which dies out as Bartlett frowns and bites the corner of his moustache in unresponsive silence. "I ought to be well enough now to stop it: I'm quite well enough to be ashamed of it." She breaks off a miserable little laugh.
Bartlett, with cold indifference.—"There's no reason why you should stop it—if it amuses you." She looks at him in surprise at this rudeness. "Do you wish to try your hand at Ponkwasset this morning?"
Constance, with a flash of resentment.—"No; thanks." Then with a lapse into her morbid self-abasement: "I shall not touch it again. Mamma!"
Mrs. Wyatt.—"Yes, Constance." Mrs. Wyatt and Cummings, both intent on Bartlett and Constance, have been heroically feigning a polite interest in each other, from which pretence they now eagerly release themselves.
Constance.—"Oh—nothing. I can get it of Mary. I won't trouble you." She goes toward the door.