I am very tired.
I have a great deal to do. You know why I took up the added burden. My
motives make me quite indifferent to petty, personal considerations.
All that, from the first, I have had in mind, was to help, to the best
of my poor ability. Whom would you rather have? Rose?--Mary?--Clara
Bartlett?--Why not mama? I will gladly help any one of them with all that I
have learnt from you as to dress and pose. But I cannot, myself, go on with
the part if such malignant dissatisfaction is to be wreaked upon me."
Jack felt his head rise at last from the submerging flood.
"But, Imogen, indeed,--I do beg your pardon. It was odious of me to speak
so. No one can do the part but you."
"Why say that, Jack, when you have just told me that I do it worse and
worse?"
"It was only a momentary impression. Really, I'm ashamed of myself."
"But it's your impression that is the standard in those tableaux. How can I
do the part if I contradict your conception?"
"You can't. I was in a bad temper."
"And why, may I ask, were you in a bad temper?"
The gaze from her serene yet awful brows was bent upon him, but under it,
in a sudden reaction from its very serenity, its very awfulness, a firm
determination rose in him to meet it. Turning very red but eyeing Imogen
very straight: "I thought you inconsiderate, ungrateful, to your mother, as
you often are," he said.
For a long moment Imogen was silent, glancing presently at Mary--scarlet
with dismay, her hastily adjusted eye-glasses in odd contrast to her
classic draperies--and then turning her eyes upon her mother who, still
standing near the table, was frowning and looking down.
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