"
"You think so?" Franks sat a little straighter, but still with
vacant eye. "Yes, not bad, I think. But who knows whether I shall
finish the thing."
"If you don't," replied his friend, in a matter-of-fact tone,
"you'll do something better. But I should finish it, if I were you.
If you had the courage to paint in the right sort of face--the
girl, you know."
"What sort of face, then?"
"Sharp-nosed, thin-lipped, rather anaemic, with a universe of
self-conceit in the eye."
"They wouldn't hang it, and nobody would buy it. Besides, Warburton,
you're wrong if you think the slummers are always that sort. Still,
I'm not sure I shan't do it, out of spite. There's another reason,
too--I hate beautiful women; I don't think I shall ever be able to
paint another."
He sprang up, and paced, as of old, about the room. Will purposely
kept silence.
"I've confessed," Franks began again, with effort, "that I made a
fool of myself the other night. But I wish you'd tell me something
about your time at Trient. Didn't you notice anything? Didn't
anything make you suspect what she was going to do?"
"I never for a moment foresaw it," replied Will, with unemphasised
sincerity.
"Yet she must have made up her mind whilst you were there. Her
astounding hypocrisy! I had a letter a few days before, the same as
usual--"
"Quite the same?"
"Absolutely!--Well, there was no difference that struck me. Then
all at once she declares that for months she had felt her position
false and painful.
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