The Intoxicated Ghost, and other stories. Bates Arlo

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      “Oh, Tom,” she said, “how could you change it so? Ralph does not look like that.”

      “No,” Claymore answered, his embarrassment giving to his voice a certain severity. “This is the reverse of the other picture. This is the evil possibility of his face.”

      He recovered his composure. Despite his coldness of demeanor, there was a vein of intense jealousy in the painter’s nature, which tingled at the tone in which his betrothed spoke of her cousin. He had more than once said to himself that, despite the fact that Celia might be more demonstrative than he, his love for her was far stronger than hers for him. Now there came to him the conviction, quick and unreasonable, that although she might not be aware of it, her deepest affection was really given to Ralph Thatcher.

      “Why did you paint it, Tom?” Celia pursued. “It is wicked. It really does not in the least resemble Ralph. I suppose you could take any face and distort it into wickedness. Where is the other picture?”

      Without a word Tom brought the first portrait and set it beside the second. Celia regarded the two canvases in silence a moment. Her color deepened, and her throat swelled. Then she turned upon Claymore with eyes that flashed, despite the tears which sprang into them.

      “You are wicked and cruel!” she said bitterly. “I hate you for doing it.”

      Tom turned pale, and then laughed unmirthfully.

      “You take it very much to heart,” he remarked.

      The tears welled more hotly in her eyes. She tried in vain to check them, and then with a sob she turned and walked quickly from the studio, the zither tinkling, as the door closed after her, with a gay frivolity that jarred sharply on Tom Claymore’s nerves.