"Why, man alive, think what
you're saying! Of course, she didn't pose for me. She never has posed
for anybody since she was married."
"And a devilish shame it is, too," responded Tom.
This conversation, which took place Wednesday afternoon, made Fenton
extremely uneasy. Fate seemed to have worked against him. He had
painted the picture to go to the New York Exhibition, where he hoped it
would be sold without ever coming under the eye of Herman at all. He
reflected now that Ninitta had posed for Helen and for several of his
brother painters, while it was scarcely credible that the likeness
which Bently had perceived at a glance should escape the trained
artist's eye of her husband; and it seemed to him now, little less than
madness to have brought the picture here at all.
Upon second thought, however, he reflected that even were the picture
recognized, no great harm would probably come of it. No one would be
likely to speak on the subject to Herman, and, least of all, was there
a probability that the latter would confess that he was aware of what
his wife had done. Herman's condemnation, Fenton said to himself with a
shrug, he must, if worst came to worst, endure; this was to be set down
with other unpleasantnesses which belong to the unpleasant conditions
of life as they exist in these days. As long as there was no open
scandal, he could ignore whatever lay beneath the surface, and he
assured himself that in any event it were wisest, as he had long ago
learned, to carry things off with a high hand.
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