starched gowns."

"Oh, Berenice, will you never say polite things of your father?"

"Never," she defiantly replied. "He wouldn't believe me if I did. No,
Hubert, I want to pose as Ophelia. Oh, don't laugh, please!" They could
not help it, and she leaped to the grass and called out:--

"I don't mean a theatrical Ophelia, singing songs and spilling flowers;
I mean Ophelia drowned--" she threw herself on the sward, her arms
crossed on her bosom, and in the moonlight they could see her eyes
closed as if by death.

"Help me down, Hubert. That girl will go mad some day." He reached the
earth and he gave her a hand. Berenice had arisen. Sulkily she said:--

"Shall I step into the Dark Tarn of Auber and float for you? I'll make a
realistic picture, my Master Painter--who paints without imagination."
And then she darted into the shrubbery and was lost to view. Without
further speech the two regained the path and returned to the house.

II

THE CRIMSON SPLASH

When Eloise was asked by Berenice how long Monsieur Mineur would remain
away on his tour, she did not reply. Rather, she put a question herself:
why this sudden solicitude about the little-loved stepfather. Berenice
jokingly answered that she thought of slipping away to Switzerland for
a _vacance_ on her own account. Eloise, who was not agreeable looking,
viewed her charge suspiciously.

"Young lady, you are too deep for me. But you'll bear watching," she
grimly confessed. Berenice skipped about her teasingly.

"I know something, but I won't tell, unless you tell."

"What is it?"

"Will you tell?"

"Yes."

"When is he coming back, and where is he now?" she insisted.

"Your father, you half-crazy child, expects to return in a month--by the
first of June. And if you wish to wire or write him, let me know."

"Now I won't tell you _my_ secret," and she was off like a gale of wind.
Eloise shook her head and wondered.

In the atelier Hubert painted. Elaine sat on a dais, her hands folded in
her lap; about her head twisted nun's-veiling gave her the old-fashioned
quality of a Cosway miniature--the very effect he had sought. It was to
be a "pretty" affair, this picture, with its subdued lighting, the face
being the only target he aimed at; all the rest, the suave background,
the gauzy draperies, he would brush in--suggest rather than state.

"I'll paint her soul, that sensitive soul of hers which tremulously
peeps out of her eyes," he thought. Elaine was a