There is a painting of D'Arcy in your room. It is the picture next
to the one that has its face turned to the wall."
She rose to her feet, and Philip stood beside her. There was a
mist in her eyes as she held out her hand to him.
"I--I--would like to have you--see that picture," she whispered.
Philip could not speak. He held the hand Jeanne had given him as
they passed through the long, dimly lighted halls. At the open
door to his room they stopped, and he could feel Jeanne trembling.
"You will tell me--the truth?" she begged, like a child. "You will
tell me what you think--of the picture?"
"Yes."
She went in ahead of him and turned the frame so that the face in
the picture smiled down upon them in all of its luring loveliness.
There was something pathetic in the girl's attitude now. She stood
under the picture, facing Philip, and there was a tense eagerness
in her eyes, a light that was almost supplication, a crying out of
her soul to him in a breathless moment that seemed hovering
between pain and joy. It was Jeanne, an older Jeanne, that looked
from out of the picture, smiling, inviting admiration, bewildering
hi her beauty; it was Jeanne, the child, waiting for him in flesh
and blood to speak, her eyes big and dark, her breath coming
quickly, her hands buried in the deep lace on her bosom.
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