to have been hurled
with violence from a considerable distance.

Shepson ignored the allusion to Corot, but screwed his eyes at the
picture. "Ah, Schracker--vell, the Schracker sdyle would take first
rate if you were a foreigner--but, for goodness sake, don't try it on
Mrs. Millington!"

Stanwell pushed the two skits aside. "Oh, you can trust me," he cried
humorously. "The pearls and the eyes very large--the extremities very
small. Isn't that about the size of it?"

"Dat's it--dat's it. And the cheque as big as you vant to make it! Mrs.
Millington vants the picture finished in time for her first barty in
the new ball-room, and if you rush the job she won't sdickle at an
extra thousand. Vill you come along with me now and arrange for your
first sitting?"

He stood before the young man, urgent, paternal, and so imbued with the
importance of his mission that his face stretched to a ludicrous length
of dismay when Stanwell, administering a good-humoured push to his
shoulder, cried gaily: "My dear fellow, it will make my price rise
still higher when the lady hears I'm too busy to take any orders at
present--and that I'm actually obliged to turn you out now because I'm
expecting a sitter!"

It was part of Shepson's business to have a quick ear for the note of
finality, and he offered no resistance to Stanwell's friendly
impulsion; but on the threshold he paused to murmur, with a regretful
glance at the denuded studio: "You could haf done it, Mr. Sdanwell--you
could haf done it!"

II

KATE ARRAN was Stanwell's sitter; but the janitor had hardly filled the
stove when she came in to say that she could not sit. Caspar had had a
bad night: he was depressed and feverish, and in spite of his protests
she had resolved to fetch the doctor. Care sat on her usually tranquil
features, and Stanwell, as he offered to go for the doctor, wished he
could have caught in his picture the wide gloom of her brow. There was
always a kind of Biblical breadth in the expression of her emotions,
and today she suggested a text from Isaiah.

"But you're not busy?" she hesitated; in the full voice which seemed
tuned to a solemn rhetoric.

"I meant to be--with you. But since that's off I'm quite unemployed."

She smiled interrogatively. "I thought perhaps you had an order. I met
Mr. Shepson rubbing his hands on the landing."

"Was he rubbing his hands? Well, it was not over me. He says that from
the style of my pictures he doesn't suppose