ift there in
the end,--visitors always do."

"The studio let it be, if you please," answered Gowan, wondering, just
as he had done the night before, at the indescribable something in
her manner which was so novel because it was so utterly free from any
suggestion of affectation. It would have been a difficult matter to tell
her that he had not come for any other reason than to see herself again,
and yet this really was the case.

But his rather fanciful taste found Phil a novelty also when she led him
into the studio, and presented him to that young man, who was lying upon
a couch with a cigar in his mouth.

Phil had something of the same cool friendliness of deportment, and,
being used to the unexpected advent of guests at all hours, was quite
ready to welcome him. He had the same faculty for making noticeable
speeches, too, and was amiable, though languid and _debonnaire_, and by
no means prone to ceremony. In ten minutes after he had entered the room
Ralph Gowan understood, as by magic, that, little as the world was to
these people, they had, in their Bohemian fashion, learned through sheer
tact to comprehend and tolerate its weaknesses. He examined the pictures
on the walls and in the folios, and now and then found himself roused
into something more than ordinary admiration. But he was disappointed in
one thing. He failed in accomplishing the object of his visit.

After she had seen that Phil and the paintings occupied his attention to
some extent, Dolly left them.

"I was beginning to think about pies and puddings when you came," she
said, "and I must go back to them. Saturday is the only day Lady Augusta
leaves me, in which to improve in branches of domestic usefulness," with
an iniquitous imitation of her ladyship's manner.

After which she went down to the kitchen again and plunged into culinary
detail with renewed vigor, thinking of the six-roomed house in the
suburbs, and the green sofa which was to fit into the alcove in the
front parlor, growing quite happy over the mental picture, in blissful
unconsciousness of the fact that a train had been that day laid, and
that a spark would be applied that very night through the medium of a
simple observation made by Phil to her lover.

"Gowan was here this morning, Grif, and Dolly brought him into the
studio. He's not a bad sort of fellow for a Philistine, and he seems
to know something about pictures. I should n't be surprised if he came
again."

CHAP