She tried to look at him with smiling, sympathetic
intelligence, while her whole being quivered in anticipation
of the blow that was coming. "Does it--does it concern
another person?" she faltered.
Kendal looked grave, and suffered an instant's compunction.
"It does--it does indeed," he assured her. "It concerns
Miss Elfrida Bell very much, in a way. Ah!" he went on
impatiently, as she still sat silent, "why are you so
unnaturally dull, Janet? I've finished that young woman's
portrait, and it is more--satisfactory--than I ever in
my life dared hope that any picture of mine would be."
"Is that all?"
The words escaped her in a quick, breath of relief. Her
face was crimson, and the room seemed to swim.
"_All!_" she heard Kendal say reproachfully. "Wait until
you see it!" He experienced a shade of dejection, and
there was an instant's silence between them, during which
it seemed to Janet that the world was made over again.
"That young woman!" She disloyally extracted the last
suggestion of indifference out of the phrase, and found
it the sweetest she had heard for months. But her brain
whirled with the effort to decide what it could possibly
mean.
"I hope you have made it as beautiful as Elfrida is,"
she cried, with sharp self-reproof.
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