It is very flippant, but you see I am honest
about it. And it must make me difficult to paint, for it
can be only by accident that I am the same person twice."
Without answering Kendal made two or three rapid strokes.
"That's better," he said, as if to himself. "Go on talking,
please. What did you say?"
"It doesn't seem to matter much," she answered, with a
little pout. "I said 'Baa, baa, black sheep, have you
any wool?'"
"No, you didn't," returned Kendal as they laughed together.
"You said something about being like Cleopatra, a creature
of infinite variety, didn't you? About having a great
many disguises--" absently. "But--"
Kendal fell into the absorbed silence of his work again,
leaving the sentence unfinished. He looked up at her with
a long, close, almost intimate scrutiny, under which and
his careless words she blushed hotly.
"Then I hope you have chosen my most becoming disguise,"
she cried imperiously, jumping up. "Now, if you please,
I will see."
She stood beside the canvas with her eyes upon his face,
waiting for a sign from him. He, feeling, without knowing
definitely why, that a critical moment had come between
them, rose and stepped back a pace or two, involuntarily
pulling himself together to meet what she might say.
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