She’d realized how he felt not at once, but rather gradually. A growing awareness of a hidden connection between seemingly meaningless incidents. How he’d blushed when a cute porter had complimented his eyes, helping him carry a suitcase. How he’d tittered when a handsome coachy had helped him aboard a carriage, grasping his hand. How flustered he’d become in the presence of a shirtless bricklayer whose hairy muscular chest was gleaming with sweat. How dramatically the pitch of his voice had changed, had become almost flirtatious, when a mustachioed bartender cologned with a musky scent had offered him a goblet of port gratis.
Finally, painting with him one day along the shore of an indigo-pink salt lake in the desert, she noticed that when a trio of nude bathers emerged from the water, he stared at the figure who was male instead of the figures who were female.
“Theodore,” Clara said.
He grunted, glancing from the bathers down toward the palette, dabbing the paintbrush in a blotch of violet.
“Have you ever been in love before?” Clara said.
The bathers chatted together, gathering clothing from the sand.
“Many times,” Theodore said.
The bathers were buttoning on trousers, twisting a ribbon, clasping on a dress.
“And you have been loved in return?” Clara said.
The bathers were grabbing a necktie, tying a bonnet, buttoning on a shirt.
“On occasion,” Theodore said.
The bathers strolled off down the beach, laughing together.
He touched a stroke of paint to the canvas.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Theodore said.
“I’m just happy for you,” Clara said.