n
he had no place for," fate had played him a trick and sent her out of
the obscurity of the fog-ridden street straight to his very hearth and
home, so that the fragrance and sweetness and charm of her must needs
linger there to torment him.

He thought he could make a pretty accurate guess at the state of
Davilof's feelings, and was ironically conscious of a sense of
fellowship with him.

Lady Arabella's sharp voice cut across his reflections.

"I don't care for this next thing," she said, flicking at her programme.
"Mrs. Grey and I are going round to see Magda. Will you come with us?"

Quarrington had every intention of politely excusing himself. Instead of
which he found himself replying:

"With pleasure--if Mademoiselle Wielitzska won't think I'm intruding."

Lady Arabella chuckled.

"Well, she intruded on you that day in the fog, didn't she? So you'll
be quits." She glanced impatiently round the box. "Where on earth has
Davilof vanished to? Has he gone up in flame?"

Michael laughed involuntarily.

"Something of the kind, I fancy," he replied. "Anyway, he departed
rather hurriedly."

"Poor Antoine!" Gillian spoke with a kind of humorous compassion. "He
has a temperament. I'm glad I haven't."

"You have the best of all temperaments, Mrs. Grey," answered Michael, as
they both followed Lady Arabella out of the box.

She looked at him inquiringly.

"The temperament that understands other people's temperaments," he
added.

"How do you know?" she asked, smiling.

Lady Arabella was prancing on ahead down the corridor, and for the
moment Michael and Gillian were alone.

"We artists learn to look for what lies below the surface. If your work
is sincere, you find when you've finished a portrait that the soul of
the sitter has revealed itself unmistakably."

Gillian nodded.

"I've been told you've an almost diabolical genius for expressing
just what a man or woman is really like--in character, I mean--in your
portraits."

"I can't help it," he said simply. "It comes--it reveals itself--if you
paint sincerely."

"And do you--always paint sincerely?"

He laughed.

"I try to. Though once I got hauled over the coals pretty sharply for
doing so. My sitter happened to be a pretty society woman, possessed
of about as much soul as would cover a threepenny-bit, and when I'd
finished her portrait she simply turned and rent me. 'I wanted a taking
picture,' she informed me indignantly, 'not the bones of my