''I mean drawing for its own sake, sir,'' says Richard gently, before I can reply.
''For its own sake?'' My uncle blinks at me. ''Maud, what do you
say?''
''I''m afraid I have no skill.''○思○兔○網○
''No skill? Well, that may be true. Certainly your hand, when I first had you here, was ungainly enough; and tends to slope, even now. Tell me, Rivers: should a course of instruction in drawing help the firmness of my niece''s hand?''
''I should say it would, sir, most definitely.''
''Then, Maud, do you let Mr Rivers teach you. I don''t care, anyhow, to imagine you idle. Hmm?''
''Yes, sir,'' I say.
Richard looks on, a sheen of blandness across his gaze like the filmy lid that guards a cat''s eye as it slumbers. My uncle bending to his plate, however, he quickly meets my look: then the film draws back, the eye is bared; and the sudden intimacy of his expression makes me shudder.
Don''t misunderstand me. Don''t think me more scrupulous than I am. It''s true I shudder in fear—fear of his plot—fear of its success, as well as of its failure. But I tremble, too, at the boldness of him— or rather, his boldness sets me quivering, as they say a vibrating string will find out unsuspected sympathies in the fibres of idle bodies. I saw in ten minutes what your