ad happened one of which was that I
made the acquaintance of Mrs. Brash; and the other that Mrs. Munden
reached me, cleaving the crowd, with one of her usual pieces of news.
What she had to impart was that, on her having just before asked Nina if
the conditions of our sitting had been arranged with me, Nina had
replied, with something like perversity, that she didn't propose to
arrange them, that the whole affair was "off" again and that she
preferred not to be further beset for the present. The question for Mrs.
Munden was naturally what had happened and whether I understood. Oh I
understood perfectly, and what I at first most understood was that even
when I had brought in the name of Mrs. Brash intelligence wasn't yet in
Mrs. Munden. She was quite as surprised as Lady Beldonald had been on
hearing of the esteem in which I held Mrs. Brash's appearance. She was
stupefied at learning that I had just in my ardour proposed to its
proprietress to sit to me. Only she came round promptly--which Lady
Beldonald really never did. Mrs. Munden was in fact wonderful; for when
I had given her quickly "Why she's a Holbein, you know, absolutely," she
took it up, after a first fine vacancy, with an immediate abysmal "Oh
_is_ she?" that, as a piece of social gymnastics, did her the greatest
honour; and she was in fact the first in London to spread the tidings.
For a face--about it was magnificent. But she was also the first, I must
add, to see what would really happen--though this she put before me only
a week or two later. "It will kill her, my dear--that's what it will
do!"

She meant neither more nor less than that it would kill Lady Beldonald if
I were to paint Mrs. Brash; for at this lurid light had we arrived in so
short a space of time. It was for me to decide whether my aesthetic need
of giving life to my idea was such as to justify me in destroying it in a
woman after all in most eyes so beautiful. The situation was indeed
sufficiently queer; for it remained to be seen what I should positively
gain by giving up Mrs. Brash. I appeared to have in any case lost Lady
Beldonald, now too "upset"--it was always Mrs. Munden's word about her
and, as I inferred, her own about herself--to meet me again on our
previous footing. The only thing, I of course soon saw, was to temporise
to drop the whole question for the present and yet so far as possible
keep each of the pair in view. I may as well say at once that this plan
and t