"Oh, I'm not a bit hurt," she protested. "I was only thinking the point over." "I want to hear what you were thinking." His smile and tone were meaningly affectionate, as if they would add "little child." "I meant that I should never really be hurt by qualifications. I have never been used to having nice things said to me. I certainly do not deserve tributes, but I know I deserve all possible qualifications." "Oh, if you please! I'll not allow even Miss Robinson to say such slanderous things about so valued a friend of mine." "So I have been slandering a friend of yours! I'm so sorry. Forgive me." "I suppose I must--though I find it hard--very hard." "I do believe you are paying me a tribute," she laughed. "Now for the qualifications. You shall see how stoical I am." "Qualifications--none!" He threw down his brushes and palette, as if to emphasise the declaration. "I'm tired first," he sang out gaily. "Let us rest." "There!" she exclaimed. "What a triumph for me!" "But you say it so gently that it is a pleasure to concede you the victory. You are an ideal foe." "Oh, if you please, I don't want to be a foe.... How cold it is!" She stooped and held her hands again to the fire. "No, child," he said gently, "of course we aren't foes. We are very good friends indeed, aren't we?" He held out his hand, as if to clench the understanding, so clearly and warmly acknowledged. She was all a-flutter again, though, as was her habit, she covered it up with a smile. "Very good friends!" she returned, with conviction, and she put her hand in his, and let it linger there. "I have always lived reserved and to myself," she added thoughtfully. "You may think it strange, but I have never had a friend before--not even a woman friend." "I can well understand your shrinking away from people. No doubt most people would jar on you." "It would hurt me if I thought that. I should not like to despise anybody. I should have loved to have friends: only I have never had the gift of making them. Sometimes I am thankful that I am not brilliant--I might so easily have become unendurable and full of self-conceit." "Ah, you are something better than brilliant," he exclaimed. "It needs an exceptional spirit to appreciate you. You are so much out of the ordinary in every way, in looks----" "No, no," she interrupted in protest. "I have no looks. I have no illusions about that." "Look at your own portrait," he insisted. "I say it is the kind of beauty it needs a gift to appreciate. In beauty--as in everything else--the crowd runs after the obvious and the commonplace." "You are the first that ever thought I possessed good looks. You have given them to me." "I have not even done you justice. I have omitted more than I have suggested. My sister thinks you are beautiful; all my artist friends who have seen the picture share her opinion." She was silent, almost distressed; she could not meet his gaze, but turned her eyes away.