at the
pictures under false pretenses.

Innocent of all suspicion of the conflicting interests whose struggle
now centered in himself, Romayne was carefully studying the picture
which had been made the pretext for inviting him to the house. He had
bowed to Stella, with a tranquil admiration of her beauty; he had
shaken hands with Penrose, and had said some kind words to his future
secretary--and then he had turned to the picture, as if Stella and
Penrose had ceased from that moment to occupy his mind.

"In your place," he said quietly to Lord Loring, "I should not buy this
work."

"Why not?"

"It seems to me to have the serious defect of the modern English school
of painting. A total want of thought in the rendering of the subject,
disguised under dexterous technical tricks of the brush. When you have
seen one of that man's pictures, you have seen all. He manufactures--he
doesn't paint."

Father Benwell came in while Romayne was speaking. He went through the
ceremonies of introduction to the master of Vange Abbey with perfect
politeness, but a little absently. His mind was bent on putting his
suspicion of Stella to the test of confirmation. Not waiting to be
presented, he turned to her with the air of fatherly interest and
chastened admiration which he well knew how to assume in his intercourse
with women.

"May I ask if you agree with Mr. Romayne's estimate of the picture?" he
said, in his gentlest tones.

She had heard of him, and of his position in the house. It was quite
needless for Lady Loring to whisper to her, "Father Benwell, my dear!"
Her antipathy identified him as readily as her sympathy might have
identified a man who had produced a favorable impression on her. "I have
no pretension to be a critic," she answered, with frigid politeness. "I
only know what I personally like or dislike."

The reply exactly answered Father Benwell's purpose. It diverted
Romayne's attention from the picture to Stella. The priest had secured
his opportunity of reading their faces while they were looking at each
other.

"I think you have just stated the true motive for all criticism,"
Romayne said to Stella. "Whether we only express our opinions of
pictures or books in the course of conversation or whether we assert
them at full length, with all the authority of print, we are really
speaking, in either case, of what personally pleases or repels us. My
poor opinion of that picture means that it says nothing to Me. Doe