I will not answer. He leaves, and I keep at my place. Sue comes to my side.
''Never mind it, miss,'' she says gently, ''if Mr Rivers seems to say hard things about your picture. Why, you got those pears, quite to the life.''
''You think so, Sue?''
She nods. I look into her face—into her eye, with its single fleck of darker brown. Then I look at the shapeless daubs of colour I have put upon the card.
''It''s a wretched painting, Sue,'' I say.
She puts her hand upon mine. ''Well,'' she says, ''but ain''t you learning?''※思※兔※網※
I am, but not quickly enough. He suggests, in time, that we go walking in the park.
''We must work from nature now,'' he says.
''I should rather not,'' I tell him. I have my paths, that I like to walk with Sue beside me. I think that to walk them with him will spoil them. ''I should rather not,'' I say again.
He frowns, then smiles. As your instructor,'' he says, ''I must insist.''
I hope it will rain. But though the sky above Briar has been grey all that winter long—has been grey, it seems to me, for sev