“Perhaps she means to kill him,” she ran on in a blood-curdling tone.  “Wouldn’t it be like Mr. Wharton to be stabbed to the heart on the steps of a church, just as his great work was done?  Do you know I think he would like it.  He is dying to be tragic like the Venetians, and have some one write a poem about him.”  Then after a moment’s pause, she added, in the same indifferent tone of voice:  “All the same, if he’s not there, I mean to go back and look out for him.  I’m not going to let that woman kill him if I can help it!”

A warm dispute arose between the two girls which continued after they reached their scaffold and found that Wharton was not there.  Esther declared that Catherine should not go back; it was ridiculous and improper; Mr. Wharton would laugh in her face and think her bold and impertinent; the woman was probably a beggar who wanted to see Mr. Hazard; and when all this was of no avail Esther insisted that Catherine should not go alone.  Catherine, on her part, declared that she was not afraid of the woman, or of any woman, or man either, or of Mr. Wharton, and that she meant to walk down the avenue and meet him, and tell him that this person was there.  She was on the point of doing what she threatened when they saw Wharton himself cross the church beneath and slowly climb the stairs.

The two girls, dismissing their alarm as easily as they had taken it up, turned to their own affairs again.  In a few minutes Wharton appeared on the scaffolding and went to his regular work-place.  After a time they saw him coming to their corner.  He looked paler than usual and more abstracted, and, what was unusual, he carried a brush in his hand, as though he had broken off his work without thinking what he was doing.  He hardly noticed them, but sat down, holding the brush with both hands, though it was wet.  For some time he looked at the Cecilia without a word; then he began abruptly: 

“You’re quite right!  It’s not good!  It’s not handled in a large way or in keeping with the work round it.  You might do it again much better.  But it is you and it is she!  I would leave it.  I will leave it!  If necessary I could in a few days paint it all over and make it harmonize, but I should spoil it.  I can draw better and paint better, but I can’t make a young girl from Colorado as pure and fresh as that.  To me religion is passion.  To reach Heaven, you must go through hell, and carry its marks on your face and figure.  I can’t paint innocence without suggesting sin, but you can, and the church likes it.  Put your own sanctity on the wall beside my martyrdom!”

Esther thought it would be civil on her part to say something at this point, but Wharton’s remarks seemed to be made to no one in particular, and she was not quite certain that they were meant for her in spite of the words.  He did not look at her.  She was used to his peculiar moods and soliloquies, and had learned to be silent at such times.  She sat silent now, but Catherine, who took greater liberties with him, was bolder.