Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/12

10 "Oh, will you? I'm not very good at it"

Still he seemed but half awake to anything but the canvas, which he was studying with knitted brows. The lady stepped down, moving her shoulders with an expression of fatigue, and her black floating skirts touched him in passing. She paused behind him, glanced at the portrait, and then at him. Her eyes caressed his bent head, joined powerfully to the shoulders, rather rough-hewn under the close-clipped hair, full of vitality and force. With a quick breath he laid down his palette and turned toward her. She was looking at the portrait.

"It has got on," she said.

"Oh, yes—all that modelling of the face, you see—it came like a flash to-day. But now let's have tea, and forgive me for tiring you."

Now he looked at her as though he saw her. He looked tired, too, all at once; light had gone out of his face, and lines of nervous fatigue showed in it. Yet it was an essentially vital face; handsome, clear in form, with a warm mouth, cool eyes, a determined chin.

The lady smiled at him and went to the tea-table, which stood behind a painted screen and was elaborately furnished. The alcohol lamp had to be filled, and this Basil accomplished deftly, with an ease that characterised all the movements of his hands. The lamp once going, he threw himself on a couch beside the table, lit