_Constance_, with a meek subtlety.--"I was afraid I had vexed you--by it." She bends an appealing glance upon him, to which Bartlett remains impervious, and she drops her eyes with a faint sigh. Then she lifts them again: "I was afraid I had--made the distance too blue." _Bartlett._--"Oh, no; not at all." _Constance._--"Do you think I had better try to finish it?" _Bartlett._--"Oh, certainly. Why not? If it amuses you!" _Constance_, perplexedly.--"Of course." Then with a sad significance: "But I know I am trying your patience too far. You have been so kind, so good, I can't forgive myself for annoying you." _Bartlett._--"It doesn't annoy me. I'm very glad to be useful to you." _Constance_, demurely.--"I didn't mean painting; I meant--screaming." She lifts her eyes to Bartlett's face, with a pathetic, inquiring attempt at lightness, the slightest imaginable experimental archness in her self-reproach, which dies out as Bartlett frowns and bites the corner of his moustache in unresponsive silence. "I ought to be well enough now to stop it: I'm quite well enough to be ashamed of it." She breaks off a miserable little laugh. _Bartlett_, with cold indifference.--"There's no reason why you should stop it--if it amuses you." She looks at him in surprise at this rudeness. "Do you wish to try your hand at Ponkwasset this morning?" _Constance_, with a flash of resentment.--"No; thanks." Then with a lapse into her morbid self-abasement: "I shall not touch it again. Mamma!" _Mrs. Wyatt._--"Yes, Constance." Mrs. Wyatt and Cummings, both intent on Bartlett and Constance, have been heroically feigning a polite interest in each other, from which pretence they now eagerly release themselves. _Constance._--"Oh--nothing. I can get it of Mary. I won't trouble you." She goes toward the door. _Mrs. Wyatt._--"Mary isn't up from her breakfast yet. If you want anything, let me go with you, dear." She turns to follow Constance. "Good morning, Mr. Cummings; we shall see you at dinner. Good morning,"--with an inquiring glance at Bartlett. Constance slightly inclines towards the two gentlemen without looking at them, in going out with her mother; and Cummings moves away to the piano, and affects to examine the sheet-music scattered over it. Bartlett remains in his place near the easel. III. BARTLETT _and_ CUMMINGS. _Bartlett_, harshly, after a certain silence which his friend is apparently resolved not to break.--"Sail in, Cummings!" _Cummings._--"Oh, I've got nothing to say." _Bartlett._--"Yes, you have. You think I'm a greater fool and a greater brute than you ever supposed in your most sanguine moments. Well, I am! What then?" _Cummings_, turning about from the music at which he has been pretending to look, and facing Bartlett, with a slight shrug.--"If you choose to characterise your own behaviour in that way, I shall not dispute you at any rate." _Bartlett._--"Go on!"