“To look handsome for half an hour—­that is a great deal to ask of me,” she answered.

“It would be the portrait of a young woman who has taken some vow, some pledge, that she repents of,” said Felix, “and who is thinking it over at leisure.”

“I have taken no vow, no pledge,” said Gertrude, very gravely; “I have nothing to repent of.”

“My dear cousin, that was only a figure of speech.  I am very sure that no one in your excellent family has anything to repent of.”

“And yet we are always repenting!” Gertrude exclaimed.  “That is what I mean by our being dreary.  You know it perfectly well; you only pretend that you don’t.”

Felix gave a quick laugh.  “The half hour is going on, and yet you are handsomer than ever.  One must be careful what one says, you see.”

“To me,” said Gertrude, “you can say anything.”

Felix looked at her, as an artist might, and painted for some time in silence.

“Yes, you seem to me different from your father and sister—­from most of the people you have lived with,” he observed.

“To say that one’s self,” Gertrude went on, “is like saying—­by implication, at least—­that one is better.  I am not better; I am much worse.  But they say themselves that I am different.  It makes them unhappy.”

“Since you accuse me of concealing my real impressions, I may admit that I think the tendency—­among you generally—­is to be made unhappy too easily.”

“I wish you would tell that to my father,” said Gertrude.

“It might make him more unhappy!” Felix exclaimed, laughing.

“It certainly would.  I don’t believe you have seen people like that.”

“Ah, my dear cousin, how do you know what I have seen?” Felix demanded.  “How can I tell you?”

“You might tell me a great many things, if you only would.  You have seen people like yourself—­people who are bright and gay and fond of amusement.  We are not fond of amusement.”

“Yes,” said Felix, “I confess that rather strikes me.  You don’t seem to me to get all the pleasure out of life that you might.  You don’t seem to me to enjoy.....  Do you mind my saying this?” he asked, pausing.

“Please go on,” said the girl, earnestly.

“You seem to me very well placed for enjoying.  You have money and liberty and what is called in Europe a ‘position.’  But you take a painful view of life, as one may say.”

“One ought to think it bright and charming and delightful, eh?” asked Gertrude.

“I should say so—­if one can.  It is true it all depends upon that,” Felix added.

“You know there is a great deal of misery in the world,” said his model.

“I have seen a little of it,” the young man rejoined.  “But it was all over there—­beyond the sea.  I don’t see any here.  This is a paradise.”

Gertrude said nothing; she sat looking at the dahlias and the currant-bushes in the garden, while Felix went on with his work.  “To ‘enjoy,’” she began at last, “to take life—­not painfully, must one do something wrong?”