About this story
At a gallery outing, a newcomer named Philip Dunboyne prefers your opinion to your sister Helena's, and by nightfall he is writing to you alone, letters Helena intercepts before you can read them. Your father guards a locked drawer he will not explain and warns you not to punish Helena for his silence, but by evening, Philip has asked to court you openly.
How it opens
The gallery smelled of varnish, wet umbrellas, and flowers arranged beneath bad portraits.
Mrs StaveleyEunice, your sister marks every fashionable picture while you challenge them.
Helena's neat catalogue held judgments copied from critics she intended to impress later.
Four works by the same painter, and all four unquestionably beautiful.
Real faces do not share one color merely because a painter prefers it.
Choose
Perhaps the figures are relations with an inherited complexion.
I would rather sound ignorant than praise what I do not see.
Helena, show me the difference you find among the four.