“Madala sent it to Mother. She said that it wasn’t good enough but that
it would give her an idea.”
“It certainly gives one an idea,” said the blonde lady languorously.
“And then she put in a post-script that it didn’t do him justice because
the sun was in his eyes. Defiantly, as it were. Isn’t that significant?
She’d never own to a mistake. Pride! She had the devil’s own pride. Look
at the way she took her reviews! And in this case she would be bound to
defend him. She’d defend anything she’d once taken under her wing.”
“Well, you know,” drawled the blonde lady, her eyes on the photograph,
“according to this he topped her by two inches. I don’t somehow see him
_under_ Madala’s wing.” And then—“After all, there’s something rather
fascinating in bone and muscle.”
“Yes, and I don’t see,” the Baxter girl hurried into defiance, “honestly
I don’t see, Miss Serle, why she shouldn’t have been in love with him.
Of course, it’s not a clever face, but it’s good-tempered, and it’s
good-looking, and there’s a twinkle. Madala loved a twinkle. And I don’t
see——”
Anita crushed her.
“We’re discussing the standards of Madala Grey.”
“That’s not the point either, Anita.” Mr. Flood would sometimes rouse
himself to defend the Baxter girl. “You know something. You own to it.
What do you know?”
“Simply that she was in love with someone else. I’ve papers that prove
it. Now it was either some man whom none of us know, whom for some
reason she wouldn’t let us know, or——” she hesitated. Then she began
again—“Mind you, I don’t commit myself, but—has the likeness never
struck you? _Hugh Barrington_ in _The Resting-place_ and——?” Her eyes
flickered towards Kent Rehan.
Mr. Flood whistled.
“Be careful, Anita.”
“He?” Miss Howe laughed, but kindly. “He’s lost to the world. He’ll be
worse than ever now.”
“There!” Anita dropped upon the sentence like a hawk upon a heather
bird. “You see! You say that! And yet you tell me there was
nothing—nothing—between them? Didn’t she rave about him? his talents?
his personality? his charm? And then she goes and writes the story of an
artist’s model!”
Miss Howe laughed again.
“When a thing’s as obvious as that, it probably isn’t so. Besides, the
artist’s model marries the artist.”
“Exactly. She leaves them, and us, cloyed with love in a cottage. I
repeat, the artist’s model marries the artist because Madala Grey
didn’t. It’s the merest shadow of a solution as yet, but—isn’t that a
living portrait in _The Resting-place_? Oh, I know it by heart—
“Maybe it was his height that gave you the impression, less of
weakness than of vagueness, as if his high forehead touched
cloud-land, and were obscured by dreams; for his cold eyes
guarded his mind from you, and his dark beard hid his mouth.”
“You _do_ know it by heart!” said Miss Howe.
“Of course I know it by heart. It was the first clue. Can anybody read
those lines without recognizing him?”