"The difference is considerable. May I ask what it was
you promised her?"

The president summoned his courage. It was easy to gather from his
infinitely reluctant insistence how painful and compelling had been the
scene which forced him to action. "She wants you to change it ... to make
the expression of the--"

For the first time the artist's equanimity was shaken. He took a step
backward. "Change it!" he said, and although his voice was low the casual
chat all over the room stopped short as though a pistol had been fired.

"It's not _my_ idea!" The president confounded himself in
self-exoneration. "I merely promised, to pacify her, to ask you if you
could not do some little thing that would--"

The critic assumed the role of conciliator. "My dear sir, I don't believe
you quite understand what you are asking. It's as though you asked a
priest to make just a little change in the church service and leave out
the 'not' in the Commandments."

"I only wish to know Mr. Falleres's attitude," said the president stiffly,
a little nettled by the other's note of condescension. "I presume he will
be willing to take the responsibility of it himself and explain to the
professor's aunt that _I_ have done--"

The artist had recovered from his lapse from Olympian to calm and now
nodded, smiling: "Dear me, yes, Mr. President, I'm used to irate
relatives."

The president hastened away and the knots of talkers in other parts of the
room, who had been looking with expectant curiosity at the group before
the portrait, resumed their loud-toned chatter. When their attention was
next drawn in the same direction, it was by a shaky old treble, breaking,
quavering with weakness. A small, shabby old woman, leaning on a crutch,
stood looking up imploringly at the tall painter.

"My dear madam," he broke in on her with a kindly impatience, "all that
you say about Professor Gridley is much to his credit, but what has it to
do with me?"

"You painted his portrait," she said with a simplicity that was like
stupidity. "And I am his aunt. You made a picture of a bad man. I know he
was a good man."

"I painted what I saw," sighed the artist wearily. He looked furtively at
his watch.

The old woman seemed dazed by the extremity of her emotion. She looked
about her silently, keeping her eyes averted from the portrait that stood
so vividly like a living man beside her. "I don't know what to do!" she
murmured with a little moan. "I can't _bear_