"What do you think of that head?"
While he looked at it she watched his face as
though her life depended upon its expression; but
it was merely negative and critical.
"You have set me a difficult task," he said.
"The portrait is faded, and a child's face is always
hard to read. But I should think that child would
grow into an unlucky man, and the wisest thing
he could do would be to abstain from growing into
a man at all."
"Why?"
"Look at the line of the under-lip. Th-th-that
is the sort of nature that feels pain as pain and
wrong as wrong; and the world has no r-r-room
for such people; it needs people who feel nothing
but their work."
"Is it at all like anyone you know?"
He looked at the portrait more closely.
"Yes. What a curious thing! Of course it
is; very like."
"Like whom?"
"C-c-cardinal Montan-nelli. I wonder whether
his irreproachable Eminence has any nephews, by
the way? Who is it, if I may ask?"
"It is a portrait, taken in childhood, of the
friend I told you about the other day----"
"Whom you killed?"
She winced in spite of herself.
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