The tone caught her, sobered her; but the colour deepened on her cheek.
“I'll treasure that as a pretty compliment,” she said. There was a little space of silence—quite a perilous little space, with various unsaid things lurking in ambush. Norma broke it first.
“Now I have seen everything, have n't I? No. There are some on the floor against the wall.”
Jimmie explained their lack of value, showed her two or three. They were mostly the wasters from his picture factory, he said. She found in each a subject for admiration, and Jimmie glowed with pleasure at her praise. While he was replacing them she moved across the studio.
“And this one?” she asked, with her finger on the top of a strainer. He looked round and followed swiftly to her side. It was her own portrait with its face to the wall.
“I am not going to show you that,” he said hurriedly.
“Why not?”
“It's a crazy thing.”
“I should love to see it.”
“I tell you it's a crazy thing,” he repeated. “A mad artist's dream.”