"Come," he said to Herman as soon as they had greeted each other, "I
know you haven't seen my _Fatima_. The boys say its the best thing I've
done, but I couldn't get a decent model, and had to depend so much on
old studies, that, for the life of me, I can't tell whether it's good
or not."
Like two blows at once came to Edith a sense of shame that she could
even involuntarily have wished for her husband's aid, and an
overwhelming consciousness of the readiness and boldness of his
falsity. She saw the face of Grant Herman, nobly instinct with truth in
every line, and, as he turned at her husband's word, everything blurred
before her vision. She believed she was going to faint, and she rallied
all her self-command to hold herself steady. The lights danced, and the
sound of voices faded as into the distance. Then, with a supreme effort
of will, she rallied, and the voices rolled back upon her ear with a
noise like the roar of an incoming wave.
A sphere of silence seemed to envelop Herman and Arthur and herself in
the very midst of the crowd, as for an instant which seemed to her
cruelly long she stood waiting for what the sculptor should say.
"Your friends are right, Fenton," Herman said, at length, in a voice so
changed from its previous cordiality that it was idle to suppose the
likeness had escaped him. "You have never painted anything better.
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