o dine at a table
d'hote in evening dress, as in some places it rendered him conspicuous.
So, sooner than have this happen he decided to dine at home, as he had
originally intended when he first thought of attempting this experiment,
and then conducted the picture into dinner and placed her in an
armchair facing him, with the candles full upon the face.

"Now this is something like," he exclaimed, joyously. "I can't imagine
anything better than this. Here we are all to ourselves with no one to
bother us, with no chaperone, or chaperone's husband either, which is
generally worse. Why is it, my dear," he asked gayly, in a tone that he
considered affectionate and husbandly, "that the attractive chaperones
are always handicapped by such stupid husbands, and vice versa?"

"If that is true," replied the Picture, or replied Stuart, rather, for
the picture, "I cannot be a very attractive chaperone." Stuart bowed
politely at this, and then considered the point it had raised as to
whether he had, in assuming both characters, the right to pay himself
compliments. He decided against himself in this particular instance, but
agreed that he was not responsible for anything the Picture might say,
so long as he sincerely and fairly tried to make it answer him as he
thought the original would do under like circumstances. From what he
knew of the original under other conditions, he decided that he could
give a very close imitation of her point of view.

Stuart's interest in his dinner was so real that he found himself
neglecting his wife, and he had to pull himself up to his duty with a
sharp reproof. After smiling back at her for a moment or two until his
servant had again left them alone, he asked her to tell him what she had
been doing during the day.

"Oh, nothing very important," said the Picture. "I went shopping in the
morning and--"

Stuart stopped himself and considered this last remark doubtfully. "Now,
how do I know she would go shopping?" he asked himself. "People from
Harlem and women who like bargain counters, and who eat chocolate
meringue for lunch, and then stop in at a continuous performance, go
shopping. It must be the comic paper sort of wives who go about matching
shades and buying hooks and eyes. Yes, I must have made Miss Delamar's
understudy misrepresent her. I beg your pardon, my dear," he said aloud
to the Picture. "You did _not_ go shopping this morning. You probably
went to a woman's luncheon somewhere. Te