Page:Marsh--The seen and the unseen.djvu/148

124 "Here is my daub."

"Daub?" The pupil seemed surprised. The master's manner was certainly ferocious. "Why do you call it a daub?"

"I only call it what other people call it, and some fool or other has bought it!"

"Mr. Major!" Miss Davidson drew herself back with distinct frigidity. Her naturally pale face, if possible, grew paler. Mr. Major immediately perceived how grossly he had blundered.

"Forgive me, Miss Davidson. I mean that some good friend, with whom charity is esteemed a virtue, has been generous to me."

"But why should you suppose anything of the kind? Why should you suppose that a person would buy a picture he did not like, and for more than it is worth?"

"Why, Miss Davidson, ah, why?" He stood leaning on the hand-rail, his eyes on her. Her eyes she kept upon the catalogue. "It sounds ridiculous; but do you know that I am acquainted with a person who thinks himself a prophet, and he told me that this week someone would buy my picture."

"He need not be a prophet to have told you that." Lifting her eyes she looked him full in the face. "Hadn't we better be moving? Someone else may wish to look at the picture as well as we." She smiled as she said this. He flushed. "But what made you say so bitterly just now that your picture was a daub?"

"I had been the unintentional listener of the public verdict. Besides"—he flung back his head with a petulant gesture—"do I not know myself that it is