Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/146

136 "Oh, how can you say?" And she got up, as if a sense of oppression, of vague discomfort, had come over her. Her visitor made her fidgety.

"You wouldn't be ashamed to go round with me?"

"Round where?"

"Well, anywhere: just to have one more walk. The very last." George Flack had got up too and he stood there looking at her with his bright eyes, with his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. As she hesitated he continued, "Then I'm not such a friend after all."

Francie rested her eyes for a moment on the carpet; then, raising them—"Where should you like to go?"

"You could render me a service—a real service—without any inconvenience, probably, to yourself. Isn't your portrait finished?"

"Yes, but he won't give it up."

"Who won't give it up?"

"Why, Mr. Waterlow. He wants to keep it near him to look at in case he should take a fancy to change it. But I hope he won't change it—it's so pretty as it is!" Francie declared, smiling.

"I hear it's magnificent, and I want to see it," said George Flack.

"Then why don't you go?"

"I'll go if you'll take me; that's the service you can render me."