'Horrible; so long, that is, as it takes the place of something more honest and really so much more clean. He wants—what do they call the stuff?—anecdotes, glimpses, gossip, chat; a picture of his "home life," domestic habits, diet, dress, arrangements—all his little ways and little secrets, and even, to better it still, all your own, your relations with him, your feelings about him, his feelings about you: both his and yours, in short, about anything else you can think of. Don't you see what I mean?' She saw so well that, in the dismay of it, she grasped my arm an instant, half as if to steady herself, half as if to stop me. But she couldn't stop me. 'He wants you just to write round and round that portrait.'
She was lost in the reflections I had stirred, in apprehensions and indignations that slowly surged and spread; and for a moment she was unconscious of everything else. 'What portrait?'
'Why, the beautiful one you did. The beautiful one you gave him.'
'Did I give it to him? Oh, yes!' It came back to her, but this time she blushed red, and I saw what had occurred to her. It occurred, in fact, at the same instant to myself. 'Ah, par exemple,' she cried, 'he shan't have it!'
I couldn't help laughing. 'My dear young lady, unfortunately he has got it!'
'He shall send it back. He shan't use it.'
'I'm afraid he is using it,' I replied. 'I'm afraid he has used it. They've begun to work on it.'
She looked at me almost as if I were Mr. Beston. 'Then they must stop working on it.' Something in her decision somehow thrilled me. 'Mr. Beston must send it straight back. Indeed, I'll wire to him to bring it to-night.'
'Is he coming to-night?' I ventured to inquire.
She held her head very high. 'Yes, he's coming to-night. It's most happy!' she bravely added, as if to forestall any suggestion that it could be anything else.
