ed. "Am I so changeable?"

"No; you're the one constant and steadfast creature in a world of
variableness. I didn't really expect that. I know that I can always
find you where I left you. You are the same as when I first saw you."

It seemed to Cornelia that she had been asking him to praise her, and
she was not going to have that. "Do you mean that I behave as badly as
I did in the Fair House? No wonder you treat me like a child." This was
not at all what she meant to say, however, and was worse than what she
had said before.

"No," he answered seriously. "I meant that you are not capricious, and
I hate caprice. But do I treat you like a child?"

"Sometimes," said Cornelia, looking down and feeling silly.

"I am very sorry. I wish you would tell me how."

She had not expected this pursuit, and she flashed back, "You are doing
it now! You wouldn't say that to--to--any one else."

Ludlow paused thoughtfully. Then he said, "I seem to treat myself like
a child when I am with you. Perhaps that's what displeases you. Well, I
can't help that. It is because you are so true that I can't keep up the
conventions with you." They were both silent; Cornelia was trying to
think what she should say, and he added, irrelevantly, "If you don't
like that sketch of her, I won't give it to her."

"I? What have I to do with it?" She did not know what they were talking
about, or to what end. "Yes, you must give it to her. I know she wants
it. And I know how kind you are, and good. I didn't mean--I didn't wish
to blame you--I don't know why I'm making such a _perfect_ fool of
myself."

She had let him have her hand somehow, and he was keeping it; but they
had both risen.

"May I stay a moment?" he entreated.

No one thing now seemed more inconsequent than another, and Cornelia
answered, with a catching of her breath, but as if it quite followed,
"Why, certainly," and they both sat down again.

"There is something I wish to tell--to speak of," he began. "I think
it's what you mean. In my picture of Miss Maybough----"

"I didn't mean that at all. That doesn't make any difference to me,"
she broke incoherently in upon him. "I didn't care for it. You can do
what you please with it."

He looked at her in a daze while she spoke. "Oh," he said, "I am very
stupid. I didn't mean this sketch of mine; I don't care for that, now.
I meant that other picture of her--the last one--the one I painted out
before I gave up painting her---- Did y