Suddenly she knew that she hated it, that she did not want the world to see it, to stare at it, to comment on it. Yes, she was glad Colin had not seen it. He might have thought——
If she had suddenly held a pistol at his head he could not have been more surprised. He turned from his very self-satisfied contemplation of the picture and stared at the original. And it was not the woman of the portrait he saw, nor the flushed, hesitating woman of the dinner-table, but a woman whose eyes were wide open and startled, as though some new aspect of life had struck her; a woman who was fighting for self-mastery, calling to her aid that pride and moral fastidiousness that were innate in her, and which lately she had been trying to keep out of sight.
She was not the woman, she told herself, she never would be the woman of the picture. That was not a woman with true love and passion in her eyes, it was mere animal sensuality. Yet she was aware that she might become that woman if she crossed the threshold. Dare she take the risk? Did she want to take the risk?
She had never heard him speak so angrily. Yes, he was really angry. His artistic pride was wounded.
“It’s very clever, very clever,” she stammered, “but I—I don’t like the way you have depicted me. It isn’t the nicest—me.”
His eyes were very light and very cold as he faced her, and suddenly they seemed to be bright and shallow, like those of a bird. His lips made a thin red line, and a hardness of the lines of the jaw became noticeable.
“Frank, don’t you understand?” she pleaded. “There, in the picture, you have made me an _amoureuse_, _une grande amoureuse_, and I—I don’t think I’m really that.” Then a little wildly—“It may be in me, I may have it in my blood, but I don’t want it to come out.... I’m sorry, Frank, but I don’t like it.”
She saw, as she looked in his face, that he did not understand, that she could never make him understand. She had mortally wounded his pride. He would never forgive the thrust.
Without a word he noisily pushed back the easel. Mechanically she sank down on the divan again, and as she disturbed one of the cushions, a piece of paper became uncovered. Before she realized that it might be private, her eyes had taken in the wording. It was the Bridgemans’ telegram—“Sorry wife ill. Cannot come to-morrow. BRIDGEMAN.”