m which the model
had risen she had deposited yet another hat, so large, so audacious and
beplumed that it seemed to have a positive personality, a positive
swagger of its own, and to be winking roguishly at the audience.
Meanwhile Madame's muslin dress of the day before had been exchanged for
something more appropriate to the warmth of her poetry--a tawdry
flame-coloured satin, in which her "too, too solid" frame was tightly
sheathed. Her coal-black hair, tragically wild, looked as though no comb
had been near it for a month, and the gloves drawn half-way up the bare
arms hardly remembered they had ever been white.

A slovenly, dishevelled, vulgar woman, reciting bombastic nonsense! And
yet!--a touch of Southern magnificence, even of Southern grace, amid the
cockney squalor and finery. Doris coolly recognised it, as she stood,
herself invisible, behind her uncle's large easel. Thence she perceived
also the other persons in the studio:--Bentley sitting in front of the
poetess, hiding his eyes with one hand, and nervously tapping the arm of
his chair with the other; to the right of him--seen sideways--the lanky
form, flushed face, and open mouth of young Dunstable; and in the far
distance, Miss Wigram.

Then--a surprising thing! The awkward pause following the recitation was
suddenly broken by a loud and uncontrollable laugh. Doris, startled,
turned to look at young Dunstable. For it was he who had laughed. Madame
also shook off her stage trance to look--a thunderous frown upon her
handsome face. The young man laughed on--laughed hysterically--burying
his face in his hands. Madame Vavasour--all attitudes thrown aside--ran
up to him in a fury.

"Why are you laughing? You insult me!--you have done it before. And now
before strangers--it is too much! I insist that you explain!"

She stood over him, her eyes blazing. The youth, still convulsed, did
his best to quiet the paroxysm which had seized him, and at last said,
gasping:

"I was--I was thinking--of your reciting that at Crosby Ledgers--to my
mother--and--and what she would say."

Even under her rouge it could be seen that the poetess turned a grey
white.

"And pray--what would she say?"

The question was delivered with apparent calm. But Madame's eyes were
dangerous. Doris stepped forward. Her uncle stayed her with a gesture.
He himself rose, but Madame fiercely waved him aside. Miss Wigram, in
the distance, had also moved forward--and paused.

"What would