"Well!" he said, answering as she had spoken, in Italian, "you must be
anxious that your husband shall know of your coming here, or you would
not take such pains to have him find it out."
He began painting sullenly, putting in the last touches upon the
background of the portrait of a beautiful girl. The lovely face of
Damaris Wainwright, so pathetic, so pure, and so noble, looking at him
from the canvas stung him inwardly into an impotent fury. His fine
sense of the fitness of things was outraged by the presence of Ninitta
beside the spiritual personality which shone upon him from the
portrait. He could even feel the incongruity between himself and his
work, though this appealed to his sense of humor as the other aroused
his anger.
Ninitta watched in silence a moment; then she rose from her seat, her
wrap falling away from her shoulders. Her tears were done, and a white
look of intense feeling showed the despair that she felt. All the
isolation which tortured her, that pain which souls like hers, blind,
groping, and helpless, are least able to bear, had left its stamp upon
her. Perhaps even her sin had been a desperate and only half-conscious
attempt once more to draw in sympathy really near a human heart. She
had learned little from the changed conditions into which the fates of
her life had brought her, but she had been separated, in mind no less
than in body, from her own kind without being fitted for other
companionship.
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