William Kendall had three daughters whom he loved to paint in tender moments with their mother, Margaret. Here, the closed curtain and open book suggest a bedtime story, but there is a tantalizing hint of another meaning
in this image. Margaret Kendall turns her face away from her husband to focus her affection on her daughter, who looks out at us with a wide-eyed, almost haunted expression. The title suggests a quiet moment before
something happens, and it is possible that this image foreshadowed the disintegration of Kendall’s family. When An Interlude was painted, the artist had begun a relationship with the adolescent niece of artist
Albert Herter. Kendall eventually divorced Margaret, resigned his teaching position at Yale, and retired to Hot Springs, Virginia, with Christine Herter.
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