Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/247

 for: but reticence is a quality one does not often find among the lower orders. Your wife's interest had touched poor Marthe too much. She wished to make sure of it. Let that be her excuse.'

Graham made no reply. He painted in silence and Madame de Lamouderie, now, kept silence too.

When he paused the light had begun to wane. But he had done much. The old head looked out at him from the canvas with an astonishing vitality. He had thought so one-sidedly of his work that he was surprised to see how it had responded to the little he had to give.

'How do you like it?' he asked, turning the canvas to the old lady. She studied it, but, as he saw, with an attention as divided as his own had been. Even her vanity was in abeyance to-day. 'It is remarkable. It is magnificent. I am satisfied to have served your genius so well, Monsieur.—Is the sitting over for to-day? The light is altered, is it not? There is something of which I wish to speak to you.'

'Yes. I can stay a little.' Graham was taken aback by the deliberate request. But if there was anything to face, it would, he felt, be better to have it over.

'Put away your things, then,' said Madame de Lamouderie, and when he had done this, perhaps a trifle sulkily, for her attitude put him singularly at a disadvantage, she pointed to the low chair opposite her own on the other side of the hearth. 'Will you sit there?'

Graham sat himself down and folded his arms.