s of the pencil
was sketching against time, leaning a little backwards, with her head in
a critically observant pose. The voice reasserted itself in crushing
peroration--

"I tell you wot it is, Mr. 'Aviland--_you're no gentleman_."

And Audrey's entrance coincided with the retreat of a stout woman,
moving slowly with an unnatural calm.

The girl doubled back her sketch-book and came forward, apologising for
the confusion. Face to face with the object of her curiosity, Audrey's
first feeling was one of surprised and reluctant admiration. Miss
Haviland was dark, and pale, and thin; she was also a little too tall,
and Audrey did not know whether she quite liked the airy masses of black
hair that curled high up from her forehead and low down on it, in crisp
tendrils like fine wire. Yet, but for her nose, which was a shade too
long, a thought too _retrousse_, Miss Haviland would have been beautiful
after the Greek type. (Audrey's own type, as she had once described it
in a moment of introspection, was the "Roman _piquante_," therefore she
made that admission the more readily.) There was a touch of classic
grace, too, in the girl's figure and her dress. She had rolled up the
sleeves of her long blue overall, and bound it below her breasts and
waist with a girdle of tape--not for the sake of effect, as Audrey
supposed, but to give her greater freedom as she worked and moved about
the studio. At this point Audrey found out that all Miss Haviland's
beauty lay in the shape of her head and neck. With "that nose" she might
be "interesting," but could never be beautiful; in fact, her mouth was
too firm and her chin stuck out too much even for moderate prettiness.

Audrey did not arrive at these conclusions in the gradual manner here
set forth. The total impression was photographed on her sensitive
feminine brain by the instantaneous process; and with the same
comprehensive rapidity she began to take in the details of her
surroundings. The attic was long, and had one window to the west, and
another to the north under the roof, looking over the leads. At the far
end were a plain square table and a corner cupboard. That was the
dining-room and the pantry. Before the fireplace were a small Persian
rug bounded by a revolving book-case, a bamboo couch, a palm fern, a
tea-table. That was the library and drawing-room. All the remaining
space was the studio; and amongst easels, stacks of canvases, draperies,
and general litter, a few li