He wanted to cry “Stop!” when she laid hand to the curtain, but he looked, instead, out across the coulee to the hills beyond, the blood surging unevenly through his veins. He felt when she drew the cloth aside; she stopped short off in the middle of telling him something Miss Satterly had said--some whimsical thing--and he could hear his heart pounding in the silence which followed. The little, nickel alarm clock tick-tick-ticked with such maddening precision and speed that Chip wanted to shy a book at it, but his eyes never left the rocky bluff opposite, and the clock ticked merrily on.
One minute--two--the silence was getting unbearable. He could not endure another second. He looked toward her; she stood, one hand full of brushes, gazing, white-faced, at “The Last Stand.” As he looked, a tear rolled down the cheek nearest him and compelled him to speech.
“What's the matter?” His voice seemed to him rough and brutal, but he did not mean it so.
The Little Doctor drew a long, quivering breath.
“Oh, the poor, brave thing!” she said, in a hushed tone. She turned sharply away and sat down.
“I expect I spoiled your picture, all right--but I told you I'd get into mischief if you went gadding around and left me alone.”
The Little Doctor stealthily wiped her eyes, hoping to goodness Chip had not seen that they had need of wiping.
“Why didn't you tell me you could paint like that?” She turned upon him fiercely. “Here you've sat and looked on at me daubing things up--and if I'd known you could do better than--” Looking again at the canvas she forgot to finish. The fascination of it held her.
“I'm not in the habit of going around the country shouting what I don't know,” said Chip, defensively. “You've taken heaps of lessons, and I never did. I just noticed the color of everything, and--oh, I don't know--it's in me to do those things. I can't help trying to paint and draw.”
“I suppose old Von Heim would have something to say of your way of doing clouds--but you got the effect, though--better than he did, sometimes. And that cow--I can see her breathe, I tell you! And the wolves--oh, don't sit there and smoke your everlasting cigarettes and look so stoical over it! What are you made of, anyway? Can't you feel proud? Oh, don't you know what you've done? I--I'd like to shake you--so now!”