He looked from the man Thomas, from whose countenance this last innuendo glanced off as from a stone wall, to ’Liza, who answered him with a puzzled scowl.  Her foot began to tap the paving-stone impatiently.

“When I gazes ’pon ‘Liza,” he pursued, “my eyes be fairly dazzled wi’ the looks o’ her.  I allow that.  She’s got that build, an’ them lines about the neck an’ waist, an’ them red-ripe lips, that I feels no care to look ‘pon any other woman.  That’s why I took up wi’ her, an’ offered her my true heart.  But strike me if I’d counted ’pon her temper; an’ she’s got the temper of Old Nick!  Why, only last evenin’—­the very evenin’ before I sailed, mark ye—­she slapped my ear.  She did, though!  Says I, down under my breath, ’Right you are my lady! we’ll be quits for that.’  But, you see, I couldn’ bear to break it off wi’ her, because I didn’ want to miss her beautiful looks.”

The women began to titter, and ’Liza’s face to flame, but her lover proceeded with great complacency: 

“Well, I was beset in my mind till an hour agone, when—­as I walked down here with ’Liza, half mad to take leave of her, and sail for Rio Grande, and likewise sick of her temper—­I sees this gentleman a-doin’ pictures at seven-an’-six; and thinks I, ’If I can get ’en to make a copy of ’Liza’s good looks, then I shall take off to sea as much as I want of her, an’ the rest, temper included, can bide at home till I calls for it.  That’s all I’ve got to say.  ’Liza’s a beauty beyond compare, an’ her beauty I worships, an’ means to worship.  But if any young man wants to take her, I tell him he’s welcome.  So long t’ ye all!”

Still holding the canvas carefully a foot from his waistcoat, to avoid smearing it, he sauntered off to the quay-steps, and hailed his boat to carry him aboard the Rare Plant.  As he passed the girl he had thus publicly jilted, her fingers contracted for a second like a hawk’s talons; but she stood still, and watched him from under her brows as he descended the steps.  Then with a look that, as it travelled in a semi-circle, obliterated the sympathy which most of the men put into their faces, and the sneaking delight which all the women wore on theirs, she strode out of the fish-market and up the street.

Seven-an’-Six squeezed the paint out of his brushes, packed up his easel and japanned box, wished the company good-day, and strolled back to his inn.  He was sincerely distressed, and regretted a hundred times in the course of that evening that he had parted with the portrait and received its price before Captain Hosken had made that speech.  He would (he told himself) have run his knife through the canvas, and gladly forfeited the money.  As it was, he lingered long over the supper it procured, and ate heartily.

A mile beyond the town, next morning, Boutigo’s van, in which he was the only passenger, pulled up in front of a roadside cottage.  A bundle and a tin box were hoisted up by Boutigo, and a girl climbed in.  It was ’Liza.