'You have been very ill,' he said in a tone of concern.
'No,' she answered. 'I am only a little tired. Will you not sit down?'
She sank into her seat again, and one thin hand lay on the cushioned arm of the chair. Instead of seating himself, Durand lifted the picture, still wrapped up, and set it upright on the table, so that it faced her.
'I heard,' he said in a low voice, 'so I did this for you from memory and a photograph.'
There was a sudden crackling and tearing of the strong paper as he ripped it off with a single movement, and then there was absolute silence for some time. Angela seemed not even to breathe, as she leaned forward with parted lips and unwinking, wondering eyes.
Then, without even a warning breath, a cry broke from her heart.
'He is not dead! You have seen him again! He is alive--they have cheated me!'
Then she choked and leaned back, pressing her handkerchief to her mouth.
Instead of answering, the painter bent his head and looked down sideways at his own astounding handiwork, and for the second time in that year he was almost satisfied. Presently, as Angela said nothing more, he was going to move the canvas, to show it in a better light, but she thought he meant to take it away.
'No!' she cried imperatively. 'Not yet! Let me see it--let me understand----'
Her words died away and she was silent again, her eyes fixed on the portrait. At last she rose, came forward, and laid both her thin hands on the narrow black and gold frame.
'I must have it,' she said. 'You must let me have it, though I cannot pay for it. But I will some day. I will work till I can earn enough money, or till I die--and if that comes soon, they will give you back the picture. You cannot take it away!'
'It is for you,' he said. 'I painted it to give to you. You see, after your father died, I kept yours--I never meant them to have it, but it seemed as if I owed you something for it, and this is to pay my debt. Do you see?'
'How kind you are!' she cried. 'How very, very kind! I do not quite follow the idea--my head is always so tired now--but I knew you would understand how I should feel--if I accepted it without any return!'
So far as arithmetic went, the man of genius and the broken-hearted girl were equally far from ordinary reckoning. Durand knew that by a turn of luck he had been able to keep the only portrait he had ever been sorry to part with when it was finished, and he was intimately convinced that he owed somebody something for such an unexpected pleasure; on her side, Angela was quite sure that unless the portrait of the man she had loved was to be an equivalent for some sort of obligation she could not be satisfied to keep it all her life unpaid for.