Millington. I haven't seen the later portraits, but they tell
me--"
"Oh, they're just as bad!" Stanwell jeered.
"You've sold your talent, and you know it: that's the dreadful part.
You did it deliberately," she cried with passion.
"Oh, deliberately," he interjected.
"And you're not ashamed--you talk of going on."
"I'm not ashamed; I talk of going on."
She received this with a long shuddering sigh, and turned her eyes
away from him.
"Oh, why--why--why?" she lamented.
It was on the tip of Stanwell's tongue to answer, "That I might say
to you what I am just saying now--" but he replied instead: "A man
may paint bad pictures and be a decent fellow. Look at Mungold,
after all!"
The adjuration had an unexpected effect. Kate's colour faded
suddenly, and she sat motionless, with a stricken face.
"There's a difference--" she began at length abruptly; "the
difference you've always insisted on. Mr. Mungold paints as well as
he can. He has no idea that his pictures are--less good than they
might be.
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