"Well, I did practise keeping quite still in one position every day all this last week, but of course a week is not long."
I had pressed the bell, and tea was brought in. I busied myself with making it for her. She looked white and ill. I felt burning with a sense of elation, of delighted triumph. The picture was there. It glimmered a white patch against the chair a little way off. The idea was realised, the inspiration caught, all the rest was only a matter of time.
We drank our tea in silence. Viola looked away from me into the fire. She did not seem constrained or embarrassed. Having decided to do, as she had, and conquer her own feelings, she did so simply, grandly, in a way that suited the greatness of her nature. There was no mincing modesty, no self-conscious affectation. The agony of confusion that she had felt in that moment when she had stood before me with her hand on the clasp of her girdle, had been evident to me, but her pride forced her to crush it out of sight.
I went over to her low chair and sat down at her feet.
"Do you know you have shown me this afternoon something which I did not believe existed--an absolutely perfect body without a fault or flaw anywhere. I did not believe there could be anything so exquisitely beautiful."
She coloured, but a warm happy look came into her eyes as she gazed back at me.
"So I did really satisfy you? I realised your expectations?" she murmured. I lifted one of her hands to my lips and kissed it.
"Satisfied is not the word," I returned, looking up into the dark blue eyes above me with my own burning with admiration. "I was entranced. May I shew it to you?"
"Yes, I should like to see it," she answered.
I rose and brought over to her the picture and set it so that we both could see it together. She gazed at it some time in silence.
"Do you like it?" I asked suddenly with keen anxiety.
"It is impossible to idealise what is in itself divine," I replied quietly. She looked at me, her face full Of colour but her eyes alight and smiling.
"I am so glad, so happy that you are pleased. You have drawn it magnificently. What life you put into your things--they live and breathe."
"I must go now, I have been here ages." She began to put on her hat and cloak. When I had fastened the latter round her throat, I took both her hands in mine.