"What a brute I was to have forgotten you were standing so long. Was
it very bad? Were you cold?"

"At the end I was, but I shouldn't have moved for that. I got so
cramped. I couldn't keep my limbs still any longer. I was sorry to be
so stupid and have to disturb you."

"I can't think how you stood so well," I said remorsefully, "and so
long. It is so different for a practised model."

"Well, I did practise keeping quite still in one position every day
all this last week, but of course a week is not long."

I had pressed the bell, and tea was brought in. I busied myself with
making it for her. She looked white and ill. I felt burning with a
sense of elation, of delighted triumph. The picture was there. It
glimmered a white patch against the chair a little way off. The idea
was realised, the inspiration caught, all the rest was only a matter
of time.

We drank our tea in silence. Viola looked away from me into the fire.
She did not seem constrained or embarrassed. Having decided to do, as
she had, and conquer her own feelings, she did so simply, grandly, in
a way that suited the greatness of her nature. There was no mincing
modesty, no self-conscious affectation. The agony of confusion that
she had felt in that moment when she had stood before me with her hand
on the clasp of her girdle, had been evident to me, but her pride
forced her to crush it out of sight.