Page:A Good Woman (1927).pdf/311

 "I . . . I was asleep," he said, desperately patting down his hair.

She smiled. "I didn't look behind the screen. Hennery told me you hadn't come in." But there was a contradiction behind the smile, a ghost of a voice which said, "I did look behind the screen. I knew you were there."

And suddenly, for the first time, Philip was stricken by an awful speculation as to how he looked when asleep. He knew that he was blushing. He said, "It doesn't matter. It's your stable, after all."

"I didn't mean to disturb you. I've stayed longer than I meant to . . . but—you see . . ."—she made a gesture toward the drawings—"I found all these more fascinating than I expected. I knew about you. My sister told me . . . but I didn't find what I expected. They're so much better. . . . You see, it's always the same. I couldn't believe it of the Town. Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?"

He began to tremble a little. He'd never shown them to any one save Krylenko, who only wanted pictures for propaganda and liked everything, good and bad. And now some one who lived in a great world such as he could scarcely imagine, thought they were good. Suddenly all the worries, the troubles, slipping from him, left him shy and childlike.

"I don't know whether they're good or bad," he said, "only . . . only I've got to do them."

She was standing before the painting of the Flats seen from the window, over which he had struggled for days. She smiled again, looking at him. "It's a bit messy . . . but it's got something in it of truth. I've seen it like that. It was like that one moonlight night