He let it be, not with the same unconsciousness in the matter as she, but hoping that the soft, warm infolding would somehow do him good. He had come in the rather desperate hope of being done good to. As he had been about to start out, having intended, when he sent the portrait, to follow close upon it, he had found himself feeling so ill--feeling, at the end of the dismal day, so indescribably burdened and ill and apprehensive of worse things--that he had been on the point of giving it up. But then the wish itself to escape from his bad feelings had impelled him forth toward the spot glowing warmer and cheerier in his thoughts than any other, where, if he could forget how ill he felt, he would naturally feel better. Aurora's house during the days of painting the first portrait had come to feel remarkably like home to him. So when Aurora released his hand, saying, "Let's have the other," he docilely gave it to her, though the fire had already partly thawed it. Gratefully, with the hand set free, he covered both her kind hands, which loved so much to warm things and feed things and pet things and give away money. Overcoming his ordinary stiffness, he pressed them right manfully, to signify that he would not speak of her tears if she wished him not to, but here was his sympathy, and with it his penitence, if so were that, as she intimated, he had had a share in making them flow. "So you are all alone this evening?" he asked in the voice that makes whatever is said seem affectionate and comforting. "Yes. I haven't even Busteretto. I let Estelle keep him on the foot of her bed. She's perfectly devoted to him. And Clotilde is busy in her own corner of the house, going over the bills. It takes lots of time." "And where is the musician in ordinary, the gifted Italo?" he inquired, with a smile meant to draw from her a smile. She was caught without difficulty. "The gifted Checkerberry hasn't been round lately," she smiled. "He won't expose himself to the night air for some time. He's got laryngitis so he can't talk above a whisper." Her eye twinkled and she laughed, though what she communicated was not on the face of it very funny. He was perhaps calling attention to this when he said, "Poor devil!" "Yes," she agreed, achieving sobriety, "it's bad weather for laryngitis," and went on with the weather, dropping Italo. "It's been a mean sort of day, hasn't it? I haven't set foot outside. I was already feeling kind of blue and making up my mind to go to bed when Gaetano came with your present." There was an intimation in her glance that this event had not made the world appear any rosier. Both turned to look at the picture. Their hands loosened naturally; they sat apart. "Can't you see why I had to paint it, Mrs. Hawthorne?" he asked, speaking eagerly, and as if pressing his defense.