It was customary for anyone going from Highboro to Savannah to carry with him commissions for friends and relatives. During autumn, though, a number of men and a few women went on the train to Savannah to sell their crops and to buy goods they did not produce and could not find in the home town. Leon was one of these. He left home a few days after the buggy ride with Annabel Davis to Boiling Springs, glad to put a little time and distance between that episode and the future. He expected to be in Savannah two or three weeks, and he had lists of errands and purchases for every female in the family, including Selma who, having so much withdrawn from the world, yet craved a few of its goods not available in Highboro stores.

In spite of her promises to Casey Troy, Sarah was not ready to give him much of her time until Leon had gone. Then she declared herself to be quite at his beck and call. For two afternoons he made quick drawings of her. At her suggestion he drew her wearing an ordinary day dress at the desk in the office. At his suggestion she put on the pink and gold brocade gown she’d had made for the late winter ball, the dress and occasion of his first seeing her. None of the drawings pleased him or gave him the necessary conviction of a specific idea for her portrait.

As she sat and as he worked, she developed a new respect for the painter, as happens sometimes when one sees another engrossed in his work. Until then, their encounters had been pleasant, but all in the same genial, bantering key. Now she saw him unsmiling, making no effort to amuse her, concentrated on the work of his mind and hands. True, she was at present the center of that work, but being so made her feel anonymous for the first time with him. As he studied her, trying to catch a clue to her inner self as well as her physiognomy, so did she study him.

She knew him to be handsome, but handsome features are not always those that best please. Now she saw and responded to something under the surface look of the man and wanted to reach out to it. Disturbed, she set her gaze beyond him, over his shoulder, then at the point between his eyes, which was like not seeing him at all. But always she came back to him, to the way the bone ridge just above the eyes jutted; on his left cheek an inch from the tip of his mustache a pimple that looked to have been aggravated by careless shaving; the red, wet tip of his tongue held between his teeth to fix concentration; the dark, curling hair on the back of his hands.