"Are both these pictures yours, Mr. Fildew?" asked Cecilia, pointing to two covered-up canvases standing on easels in the middle of the room.
"No. That one is my friend Macer's; this one is mine."
"If I am very good and promise not to make a noise or ask too many questions, may I see them, Mr. Fildew--both of them?"
"Certainly you may see them, Miss Browne, and that without making a promise of any kind. But I must warn you that neither of them is finished, and must therefore deprecate any severe criticism."
"I don't want to criticise them, but simply to see them," said Cecilia, as Clem flung back the coverings.
She looked at Tony's picture first. After contemplating it in silence for a little while, she said softly, and more as if talking to herself than to Clem, "I think that I should like to know Mr. Macer." Then she passed on to Clem's picture. But she had not looked at it more than half a minute before she discovered that one of the two faces depicted in it was an exact reproduction of her own. Sly Master Clem had painted her portrait from memory, and had stuck it into his picture. The warm color mounted to Cecilia's face, her eyes dropped, and she turned away without a word.
Clem readjusted the coverings, and when he turned Cecilia was sitting in the chair next to Miss Browne's, apparently immersed in the pages of _Punch_.
Clem got his colors, brushes, and palette, with the view of immediately setting to work. He had already planted his easel on the spot where he intended it to stand. The cause of Cecilia's blush had been patent to him in a moment, and, while sorry to think that his audacity might possibly have annoyed her, he yet could not help feeling flattered by the fact of her having so quickly recognized her own likeness. "I have scared her a little," he said to himself. So for the present he addressed himself exclusively to Miss Browne, of course under the mistaken belief that she was Miss Collumpton, posing her and arranging her so as to suit best with his ideas of artistic effect.
Three quarters of an hour passed quickly, and then Miss Browne declared that she was tired. All this time Cecilia had scarcely spoken. "Now, Mora, dear, it's your turn," said Miss Browne to Cecilia.
