"It is my only picture," he said. Then Philip saw an opportunity, which was as welcome as it was unexpected. "I beg you not to touch Madge's figure or face again," he said. "It is absolutely finished; there is nothing more to be done to it. Please!" Evelyn gave a snort of disgust. "That is criticism," he said. "Not at all; there is nothing to criticise. I mean it, really." Now Philip was no bad judge, and Evelyn was well aware of that. He had been as he painted, intensely anxious that Philip should like it, and Philip more than liked it. The great pleasure that that knowledge gave him was sufficient for the time to banish the forebodings that had begun to creep back, and were in a way confirmed by Philip's wish that it should not be touched. "Oh, Philip, is it really good?" he said. "I feel that I know it is, but I want so much that both you and she should think so." "I can answer for myself," said the other. With that the whole subject was dismissed for the time. Evelyn had given no promise that he would not touch the figure again, but Philip on his side was wise enough to dwell on that point no more, for he saw quite well that a certain inkling of the true state of things had been present, however dimly, to the other, and any further allusion would but tend to disperse that dimness and make things clearer. So the new canvas was produced, and Philip was put into pose after pose without satisfying the artist. "No, no," he cried; "if you stand like that, you look like an elderly St. Sebastian, and, with your hand on the table, you look like a railway director. Look here, walk out of the room, come in whistling, and sit down. I am not going to paint you portrait, you are not going to be photographed. Just pretend I'm not here." This went better, and soon, with inarticulate gruntings, Evelyn began to put in the lines of the figure with charcoal. At first he laboured, but before long things began to go more smoothly; his own knitted brow uncreased itself, and his hand began to work of itself. Then came a half hour in which he talked, telling his sitter of his visit to the Hermit, and the really charming days he had spent in the Forest. But that again suggested a train of thought which caused silence again and a renewal of the creased brow. But it was not at his sketch that he frowned. Eventually he laid his tools down. "I can't go on any more," he said. "Thanks very much! It's all right." He wandered to the chimney-piece, lit a cigarette, and came back again. "You mean Miss Ellington doesn't want to give me any more sittings, don't you?" he said. "For it is childish to expect me to believe that she can't spare one hour between now and the end of the month." The childishness of that struck Philip too. "But I ask you not to touch it any more, except of course the background," he said. "Won't that content you?" "Not in the least. It is not the real reason." Philip was cornered, and knew it.