“What a beautiful room,” murmured Corthell, as she touched the button in the wall that opened the current, “and how much you have impressed your individuality upon it. I should have known that you lived here. If you were thousands of miles away and I had entered here, I should have known it was yours⁠—and loved it for such.”

“Here is the picture,” she said, indicating where it hung. “Doesn’t it seem to you that the light is bad?”

But he explained to her that it was not so, and that she had but to incline the canvas a little more from the wall to get a good effect.

“Of course, of course,” she assented, as he held the picture in place. “Of course. I shall have it hung over again tomorrow.”

For some moments they remained standing in the centre of the room, looking at the picture and talking of it. And then, without remembering just how it had happened, Laura found herself leaning back in the Madeira chair, Corthell seated near at hand by the round table.