there had been times -when dereks work had been going less smoothly than he would have liked , or when they had argued over some silly inconsequential matter- when she had felt much like the figure in the painting , hemmed in , confined , incarcerated ; the figure was only a small part of the painting , though , and it was easy , when her mood was equable , to forget that the crouching man was there and enjoy the painting simply for its color and sparkle , to see it as a splash of paint and nothing more .