He went into the shack and came back with a drawing-block which he stood upon the table under the lamp, and Dick saw that it was a water-color portrait of Clare Kenwardine. He did not know much about pictures, but it was obvious that Jake had talent. The girl stood in the patio, with a pale-yellow wall behind her, over which a vivid purple creeper trailed. Her lilac dress showed the graceful lines of her slender figure against the harmonious background, and matched the soft blue of her eyes and the delicate white and pink of her skin. The patio was flooded with strong sunlight, but the girl looked strangely fresh and cool. "I didn't mean to show you this, but it's the best way of explaining what I think," Jake said with some diffidence. "I'm weak in technique, because I haven't been taught, but I imagine I've got sensibility. It's plain that when you paint a portrait you must study form and color, but there's something else that you can only feel. I don't mean the character that's expressed by the mouth and eyes; it's something vague and elusive that psychologists give you a hint of when they talk about the _aura_. Of course you can't paint it, but unless it, so to speak, glimmers through the work, your portrait's dead." "I don't quite understand; but sometimes things do give you an impression you can't analyze," Dick replied. "Well, allowing for poor workmanship, all you see here's harmonious. The blues and purples and yellows tone, and yet, if I've got the hot glare of the sun right, you feel that the figure's exotic and doesn't belong to the scene. The latter really needs an olive-skinned daughter of the passionate South; but the girl I've painted ought to walk in the moonlight through cool forest glades." Dick studied the picture silently, for he remembered with disturbing emotion that he had felt what Jake suggested when he first met Clare Kenwardine. She was frank, but somehow remote and aloof; marked by a strange refinement he could find no name for. He was glad that Jake did not seem to expect him to speak, but after a few moments the latter wrapped up the portrait and took it away. When he came back he lighted a cigarette. "Now," he said, "do you think it's sensible to distrust a girl like that? Admitting that her father makes a few dollars by gambling, can you believe that living with him throws any taint on her?" Dick hesitated. Clare had stolen his papers. This seemed impossible, but it was true. Yet when he looked up he answered as his heart urged him: "No. It sounds absurd." "It is absurd," Jake said firmly. Neither spoke for the next minute, and then Dick frowned at a disturbing thought. Could the lad understand Clare so well unless he loved her? "That picture must have taken some time to paint. Did Miss Kenwardine often pose for you?" "No," said Jake, rather dryly; "in fact, she didn't really pose at all. I had trouble to get permission to make one or two quick sketches, and worked up the rest from memory."