ture,
and what it was to hold for them. Larry knew what his future must hold
if it was to satisfy him. Since the moment when "Love's sickness" had
laid hold of him (the same as a person would get a stitch leaning over
a churn) he had known it. While he painted her, staring deep and hard,
appraising, carefully, with his outer soul, the curve of her cheek,
the delicate drawing of her small ear, the tender droop of her dark
eyelashes, all the subtle values of light and shade, all the problem
of inherent colour, and the colour that was lent by the sky and the
green things round her, his inner soul was repeating the old saying:
"I love my eyes for looking at you!"

Sometimes he thought he would stand it no longer, he would throw down
his palette and his brushes, and let the portrait go to blazes, and
kneel at her feet, telling her, over and over again, that he loved
her, until she would have to believe him. Yet, for there is something
inhuman about the artist, he refrained. The portrait was going so
well--the best head he had ever done--out of sight better than
anything he had done at the studio (what wouldn't he give to have a
lesson on it from old Chose!). He wouldn't break the spell of
successful work until he could carry the picture no farther. Then, he
thought to himself, oh then, he would be strong to speak!

And, did he but know it, there was no need to speak; not any need at
all. For Christian knew. Not enough has been said about her if it has
not been made clear that, for her spirit, the barriers and coverings
that other spirits take to themselves wherewith to build hiding-places
and shelters were "of little avail. Motives and tendencies, the hidden
forces that underlie action, were perceptible to her as are to the
water-diviner the secret waters that bend and twist his hazel rod.
Well she knew that Larry loved her; he was not the first in whom she
had divined it, but he was the first whose heart, crying to her,
voicelessly, had wakened the answering chime in hers; the first, she
said to herself, and the last. She wondered, sometimes, if he knew; it
seemed incredible that he could be with her, watching her, studying
her least look, and not know. Yet, she loved him for not knowing, for
his boyishness, his babyishness, his simplicity. She wondered if she
were a fairy-woman, who by her arts had beguiled a mortal. She had met
an extraordinary woman once, in London, where anyone, however
extraordinary, is possible, and