Let me put my answer to your charges here," he touched her portrait.
Almost, his reply was worthy of Conrad Lagrange, himself.
"I don't quite understand," she said, a trifle put out by the turn his answer had taken.
"I mean," he explained eagerly, "that I want to repaint your portrait.

You remember, I wrote, when I returned Mr.Taine's generous check, that I was not altogether satisfied with it.

Give me another chance." "You mean for me to come here again, to pose for you ?--as I did before ?" "Yes," he answered, "just as you did before.

I want to make a portrait worthy of you, as this is not.

Let me tell you, on the canvas, what I cannot--" he hesitated then said deliberately--"what I _dare_ not put into words." The woman received his words as a veiled declaration of a passion he dared not, yet, openly express.