"I uncover," said I. "In other words, I take my hat off to you.
Eve, you are an artist. I only wish I were."

"Why?"

"I'd paint you- here, now, just as you are."

"I know I look awful."

"You look perfectly sweet."

"I can't help it."

"I shouldn't try."

She did look wonderful. I had put her upon the sofa, but she had
moved from there, and was sitting on the hearth in front of the
great fire. Plainly she had kept her long grey fur coat on, when
she had first sat down but now she had slipped out of it, and it
lay all tumbled about her on the rug. She was in evening dress,
and might have returned, as I had, from a ball. All blue, it
was, blue of a wonderful shade- periwinkle, I think they call it,
Her stockings were flesh-coloured and her shoes of gold: these
she had taken off, the better to warm her little shining feet.
White arms propped her towards the fire, and she sat sideways,
with one leg straight by the warm kerb, the other drawn up and
bringing her dress tight and a little away from a silk knee. Her
dark hair had worked loose under the weight of the rug, and was
lying thick about her smooth shoulders. Save in her face, she