'I can't do that. These paintings are of value and should compensate you. You could take them to a man I know and let him sell them for you on a commission basis.' She saw his expression. 'No?'
'No.' He added, 'Cornelius could need them. They might trigger his latent talent or something.'
'Then take one at least,' she urged. 'This one. I'd like you to have it. To give you something by which to remember me.'
'I don't need that to remember you, Sardia.' Dumarest made no move to take the painting. 'And I need to travel light.'
With his clothes and knife and little else aside from his memories but they would burden enough. As would be the pain he had known, the broken hopes, the aching loneliness.
She turned, looking at Cornelius, seeing him staring at her, one hand extended. He smiled as she took it in her own, comforted, satisfied and contented as a man could be who has found the thing necessary to his happiness. The thing most men needed; a woman who loved him and whom he could love. A simple thing but Dumarest- Dumarest needed to find a world.
