strangely uneasy. Her usual coolness had left her. The
hot blood had come back to her cheeks and glowed there in uneven patches
of red. Garstin gazed at her with profound and cruel interest.

"Sacrifice!" he said. "Who talked of sacrificing you? Who wishes to
sacrifice you? I only want--"

"One doesn't know--with a man like that one doesn't know where it would
lead to."

"Then you think he's a thundering blackguard? And yet you defended him
just now, said perhaps I couldn't paint him just because I'd made up my
mind he was a brute. You're a mass of contradictions."

"I don't say he's bad. He may not be bad."

"Fact is, as I said, you're in a mortal funk of him."

"I am not!" she said, with sudden anger. "No one shall say I'm afraid
of any man. You can ask anyone who knows me really well, and you will
always hear the same story. I'm afraid of no one and nothing, and I've
proved it again and again."

"Well then, what's to prevent you proving it to me, my girl?"

"I will!"

She lifted her chin and looked suddenly impudent.

"What do you wish me to do to prove it?" she asked him defiantly.

"If Arabian does come to-day go away with him when he goes. Get to know
him really. You could, I believe. But ever since he's come here to sit
he has shut up the box which contains the truth of what he is, locked
it, and lost the key. His face is a mask, and I don't paint masks."

"Very well. I will."

"Good!" said Garstin sonorously, and looking suddenly much less tired
and morose.

"But why do you think _I_ could get to know him?"

"Because he's--but you know why better than I do."

"I don't."

"Arabian's in love with you, my girl. By Jove! There he is!"

The bell had sounded below.

With a swift movement Garstin got hold of a palette knife, sprang at the
sketch of Arabian, and ripped up the canvas from top to bottom. Miss Van
Tuyn uttered a cry.

"Dick!"

"That's all right!"

He threw the knife down.

"We'll do better than that by a long way."

He got hold of her hand.

"Stick to your word, my girl, and I'll paint you yet--and not an Academy
portrait. But you've got to _live_. Just now, with your cheeks all in
patches you looked stunning."

The bell went again.

"Now for him!"

He hurried downstairs.

CHAPTER IV

Lady Sellingworth was afraid. In spite of her many triumphs in the past
she had a deep distrust of life. Since the tragedies of her middle age
her curious natural diffidence, whic