“You better get out of here,” he said. “If anyone catches you in my room, I’ll really be thrown out on my ear—or ass.”

She blushed, stood up, and wiggled over to him, teasingly. She still hadn’t retied her bodice so that, looking down, Josef saw her bare breasts. She grinned, shamelessly, he thought; flipped one breast out of the bodice at him, and ran, laughing, about the room.

“They’ll hear you. Hush. Shut up—” he yelled.

“They aren’t home yet and you know it. Worried?” She giggled breathlessly, her brown eyes alight with excitement.

“Well, your youngest brother is. You can’t bribe him to leave us alone forever. What if he tells?”

“La la, that’s your concern,” she laughed. “I’ll just lie about the whole thing.”

“Well, so will I! So will I!” he shouted. He never knew how to handle her when she got in this kind of mood, and she knew it. “Ah, the hell with it!” he yelled, hopelessly. He grabbed her, threw her on the bed, and grinned while she ripped his clothes off. Again.

Seven was very quiet. He and Cyprus had merged with the landscape painting, peering through it, out into the room. “Well, he’s certainly having a good time,” Seven said finally.

“I thought that’s why you liked him so much, because he did enjoy himself,” Cyprus answered.

“Well … he is, isn’t he? There’s something in all of this that I don’t like,” Seven said doubtfully. In the meantime he and Cyprus discreetly blocked out the scene so as not to invade Josef’s privacy in such a personal moment. They simply stayed in the landscape, while putting a mental shield between themselves and the room.

When Seven peeked back out, the girl was gone. A disheveled Josef sat unhappily on the bed, muttering to himself. He’d lost most of the good daylight painting hours, and now he was so disgusted with himself that he didn’t feel like working. And if he didn’t work, he’d just feel worse. More, as he eyed the painting, he had the uneasy suspicion that something was wrong. For one thing, the glazes didn’t look nearly as clear and glowing as they could. There was a suggestion of murkiness creeping into the color. He went over to the easel and stood glowering at the painting.

Three days ago, the painting had looked great to him. This morning it had looked great. Now he had projected all of his dissatisfaction with himself into the landscape. Flaws he hadn’t noticed earlier became readily apparent. Had he grayed his colors down too much? Had he put on the top glaze before the one beneath was dry? Or was the problem in the dry pigment itself as he mixed it with the oil?