lady."

"Like a pot of jam left carefully under cover... That will be all right
till to-morrow," said Rodney.

"Very likely. It is humiliating to admit it, but it is so; the
substance of our lives is woman; all other things are irrelevancies,
hypocrisies, subterfuges. We sit talking of sport and politics, and all
the while our hearts are filled with memories of women and plans for
the capture of women. Consciously or unconsciously we regard every
young woman from the one point of view, 'Will she do?' You know the
little look that passes between men and women as their hansoms cross?
Do not the eyes say: 'Yes, yes, if we were to meet we might come to an
understanding?' We're ashamed that it should be so, but it is the law
that is over us. And that night at my dinner-party, while talking to
wise mammas and their more or less guileless daughters, I thought of
the disgrace if it were found out that I had picked up a girl in the
street and put her in charge of the landlady."

"But one couldn't leave her to the mercy of the street."

"Quite so; but I'm speaking now of what was in the back of my mind."

"The pot of jam carefully covered up," said Rodney, laughing.

"Yes, the pot of jam; and while talking about the responsibilities of
Empire, I was thinking that I might send out for a canvas in the
morning and sketch something out on it; and when I got home I looked
out a photograph of some women bathing. I expected her about twelve,
and she found me hard at work.

"Oh, I didn't know that you were a painter," she said.

"No more I am, I used to be; and thinking of Rodney's statue and what I
can see of you through that dress I thought I'd try and do something
like you."

"I'm thinner than that."

"You're not thin."

"We argued the point, and I tried to persuade her to give me a sitting.
She broke away, saying that it wasn't the same thing, and that she had
sat for you because there were no models in Dublin. 'You've been very
good to me,' she said, 'I should have had to sleep in the Park last
night if it had not been for you. Do continue to be good to me and get
me on the stage, for if you don't I shall have to go back to Dublin or
to America.' 'America,' I said. 'Do you want to go to America?' She
didn't answer, and when she was pressed for an answer, she said: 'Well,
all the Irish go to America, I didn't mean anything more; I am too
worried to know what I am saying,' and then, seeing me turn round to
look at my pic