She laughed. "No, the unreal one!"
"Well, I doubt whether Mrs. Maybough wrote to me of her own inspiration, entirely. I suspect that Wetmore and Plaisdell have been working the affair, and I don't like that."
"Well?"
"And I'm waiting for you to say whether I could do it. That's the real reason."
"How should I know?"
"I could make a picture of her," he said, "but could I make a portrait? There is something in every one which holds the true likeness; if you don't get at that, you don't make a portrait, and you don't give people their money's worth. They haven't proposed to buy merely a picture of you; they've proposed to buy a picture of a certain person; you may give them more, but you can't honestly give them less; and if you don't think you can give them that, then you had better not try. I should like to try for Miss Maybough's likeness, and I'll do that, at least, if you'll try with me. The question is whether you would like to."
"Like to? It's the greatest opportunity! Why, I hope I know what a chance it is, and I don't know why you ask me to."
"I want to learn of you."
"If you talk that way I shall know you are making fun of me."
"Then I will talk some other way. I mean what I say. I want you to show me how to look at Miss Maybough. It sounds fantastic——"