could do what she disliked better than most people can. For one thing, she very seldom did it, because she was almost always sure that what she disliked was wrong. On the rare occasions when she accepted a challenge to her will she did it with a force which overrode not only her own dislike, but the dislike of everybody else who was involved in it.
It was in one of these infrequent moments that she accepted Marcel Dupin's criticism. It broke against her most cherished faith that her love was helping Geoffrey to paint. She could hardly bear to believe it possible that she hindered him. How could love, the redemptive, assuaging passion, be a thing to stab your artistic toe against? It did not make her think less of Geoffrey, she was too fond of him for that, but it made her think rather less of men. She said to Mrs. Dering, in a flash of impatience:
"I can't understand men. There is a certain coarseness—" She left her sentence vague.
"There ought to be," said Mrs. Dering, mysteriously.
Emily left this cryptic remark alone; she did not wish to have to think her mother coarse.
Emily, like everybody else, knew that what she wanted was truth; it had n't occurred to her that what she did n't want was truth as well. She made a new plan, and sent for Geoffrey. He came with an eagerness which set her heart at rest.
They sat hand in hand on the sofa in Emily's studio. Emily wore a cloudy blue dress embroidered with silver lilies.
"I 've thought of something wonderful," she explained—"something I want you to do for me. Will you, Geoffrey?"
"Blind?" asked Geoffrey. He took her in his arms and kissed her.
He knew that he would probably do it blind even if she gave him explanations. Emily was unaware that she loaded her dice before she played them; she never meant to be unfair.
"Of course I 'll tell you first," she said, returning his embrace. "Only you must be good and listen. After you left us yesterday Marcel Dupin told me something which I'm horribly afraid was true. He said you were n't painting as well as you did, and that it was my fault."
Emily paused. She rather hoped, after all, that Geoff would laugh at the idea, and that it would n't be her duty to do what she did n't like; but he sat with his eyes lowered and said nothing.
"He said all kinds of strange things," Emily went on a little hurriedly,—she was trying not to be disappointed in Geoffrey,—"and I thought them all over afterward, Geoffrey darling. For a little while I want you to go away from me."
Geoffrey said:
"Where?" Any other Amberley would have said "Damn!" and "Damn!" would have been better than "Where?"
"I think it had better be St. Ives," Emily said firmly, "because mother would like us to take a cottage there this summer, and you could find one for us in your spare time. And it's full of the most wonderful bits to paint."
Geoffrey cleared his throat. He had never been able to make Emily understand how totally useless other people's wonders are in the field of art.
"It's too far away for week-ends," Emily went on, "so that it would be a real separation. And you must take Fanny there and paint her."
"I must do what!" cried Geoffrey. "Good God, Emily, you 're mad! Why, in Heaven's name, saddle me with that girl!"
Emily had expected a little resistance, but she was startled at the vehemence of Geoffrey's exclamation. It seemed almost a pity to have to make him do what he resented. Still, she knew she would have to make him do it.
"It must be Fanny," she explained patiently. "Of course you can do St. Ives, too. But I saw what Marcel Dupin meant. You really are a portrait-painter, and you must have, at any rate, to start with a subject that perfectly appeals to you. Fanny does appeal to you. I saw how good she was for your work from the sketch you did of her."
"Well, let me wait till I come back," Geoffrey urged. "Fanny 'll keep. I don't want that girl on my hands; she might fall into all sorts of mischief. And how the deuce am I to manage her? I can't do it; honestly, I can't, Emily!"
Emily smiled gently.
"You don't know how wonderful you are, dearest," she said inexorably. "Fanny came back from the country this morning; she is n't really strong yet. The whole thing will fit in perfectly; besides, I don't want Marcel Dupin to see her. He is just the kind of man who might be bad for Fanny. I want her taken out of his way. You will help her far more than you know. The quiet companionship of a man who respects women will be like another life to her. You realize, dearest, how utterly I trust you?"
Geoffrey groaned; he realized it.