And she painted the man to herself in brighter colours now than she had ever given to him in her former portraits.

He cared for her.

He was gracious to her.

He appreciated her talents, her beauty, and her conduct.

He knew that she deserved a treatment very different from that accorded to her by her husband.
Why should she reject the sympathy of her father's oldest friend, because her husband was madly jealous about an old man?
Her husband had chosen to send her away, and to leave her, so that she must act on her own judgment.