"Well, I doubt whether Mrs. Maybough wrote to me of her own
inspiration, entirely. I suspect that Wetmore and Plaisdell have been
working the affair, and I don't like that."
"Well?"
"And I'm waiting for you to say whether I could do it. That's the real
reason."
"How should I know?"
"I could make a picture of her," he said, "but could I make a portrait?
There is something in every one which holds the true likeness; if you
don't get at that, you don't make a portrait, and you don't give people
their money's worth. They haven't proposed to buy merely a picture of
you; they've proposed to buy a picture of a certain person; you may
give them more, but you can't honestly give them less; and if you don't
think you can give them that, then you had better not try. I should
like to try for Miss Maybough's likeness, and I'll do that, at least,
if you'll try with me. The question is whether you would like to."
"Like to? It's the greatest opportunity! Why, I hope I know what a
chance it is, and I don't know why you ask me to."
"I want to learn of you."
"If you talk that way I shall know you are making fun of me."
"Then I will talk some other way. I mean what I say. I want you to show
me how to look at Miss Maybough. It sounds fantastic----"
"It sounds ridiculous. I shall not do anything of the kind."
"Very well, then, I shall not paint her."
"You don't expect me to believe that," said Cornelia, but she did
believe it a little, and she was daunted. She said, "Charmian would
hate it."
"I don't believe she would," said Ludlow. "I don't think she would mind
being painted by half-a-dozen people at once. The more the better."
"That shows you don't understand her," Cornelia began.
"Didn't I tell you I didn't understand her? Now, you see, you must. I
should have overdone that trait in her. Of course there is something
better than that."
"I don't see how you could propose my painting her, too," Cornelia
relented, provisionally.
Ludlow was daunted in his turn; he had not thought of that. It would be
a little embarrassing, certainly, but he could not quite own this. He
laughed and said, "I have a notion she will propose it herself, if you
give her a chance."
"Oh," said Cornelia, "if she does that, all well and good."
"Then I may say to her mother that I will make a try at the portrait?"
"What have I to do with it?" Cornelia demanded, liking and not liking
to have the decision seem left to her. "I shall have nothing to do with
it if she doesn't do it of her own accord."
"You may be sure that she shall not have even a suggestion of any
kind," said Ludlow, solemnly.
"I shall know it if she does," Cornelia retorted, not so solemnly, and
they both laughed.
While he stayed and talked with her the affair had its reason and
justification; it seemed very simple and natural; but when he went away
it began to look difficult and absurd. It was something else she would
have to keep secret, like that folly of the past; it cast a malign
light upon Ludlow, and showed him less wise and less true than she had
thought him. She must take back her consent; she must send for him,
write to him, and do it; but she did not know how without seeming to
blame him, and she wished to blame only herself. She let the evening go
by, and she stood before the glass, putting up her hand to her back
hair to extract the first dismantling hairpin, for a sleepless night,
when a knock at her door was followed by the words, "He's waitun' in
the parlor." The door was opened and the Irish girl put a card in her
hand.