Seeing her hesitate, he said again, "Come."
"I--I am afraid to look," she faltered.
He laughed. "Really I don't think it's quite so bad as that."
"Oh, but I don't mean that I'm afraid it's bad--it isn't."
The painter watched her,--a queer expression on his face,--as he returned
curiously, "And how, pray tell, do you know it isn't bad--when you have
never seen it? It's quite the thing, I'll admit, for critics to praise or
condemn without much knowledge of the work; but I didn't expect you to be
so modern."
"You are making fun of me," she laughed. "But I don't care. I know your
work is good, because I know how and why you did it. You painted it just
as you painted the spring glade, didn't you?"
"Yes," he said soberly, "I did. But why are you afraid?"
"Why, that's the reason. I--I'm afraid to see myself as you see me."
The man's voice was gentle with feeling as he answered seriously, "Miss
Andres, you, of all the people I have ever known, have the least cause to
fear to look at your portrait for _that_ reason. Come."
Slowly, she went forward to stand by his side before the picture.
For some time, she looked at the beautiful work into which Aaron King had
put the best of himself and of his genius.
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