" He groped among
his canvases. "She's framed in black. Is this a black frame that I have my hand
on? There she is. What do you think of her?"
He turned a scarred formless muddle of paint towards Maisie, and the eyes
strained as though they would catch her wonder and surprise. One thing and one
thing only could she do for him.
"Well?"
The voice was fuller and more rounded, because the man knew he was speaking of
his best work. Maisie looked at the blur, and a lunatic desire to laugh caught
her by the throat. But for Dick's sake--whatever this mad blankness might mean-
-she must make no sign. Her voice choked with hard-held tears as she answered,
still gazing at the wreck--"Oh, Dick, it is good!"
He heard the little hysterical gulp and took it for tribute. "Won't you have
it, then? I'll send it over to your house if you will."
"I? Oh yes--thank you. Ha! ha!" If she did not fly at once the laughter that
was worse than tears would kill her. She turned and ran, choking and blinded,
down the staircases that were empty of life to take refuge in a cab and go to
her house across the Parks. There she sat down in the dismantled drawing-room
and thought of Dick in his blindness, useless till the end of life, and of
herself in her own eyes.
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