ze it whilst I'm in form."

"Ah, I was just thinking it over," she said gravely. "I am not sure that
I am really so pleased at being 'elusive.' If my features are not to be
seized, how are they to be remembered? Definite women have the best of
it--they are less easily forgotten, I should say."

"That would be true if one had any desire to remember them," he
returned. "But no," he corrected himself; "it is not true in any case.
Where there is only one definite set of features to forget, it is
forgotten wholly and absolutely, once that point is reached. But the
woman with the elusive features has so many sides that it would take a
long time to forget them all. And then a man is always so entrancingly
occupied calling up her picture. You let all the fleeting phases float
around you. What more engrossing than to choose among these rival
gleams of loveliness, yet find them all enchanting and precious?"

"You convince me of the absolute unforgetableness of the elusive woman,"
she laughed. Then, abruptly, she grew grave again.

When he stopped work for that morning, they both inspected the canvas
critically. "I think I have made the right beginning--you see the spirit
of the idea is all there."

"With the help of the lesson you gave me before," she ventured.

"If I continue equally well, we shall find oceans of time before the end
of the month. Wouldn't it be splendid if the Salon received it!"

She was full of joyous delight at the prospect, but, glancing at the
clock, gave an exclamation of horror. "We are forgetting lunch!"

A minute or two later Wyndham was shaking hands with the old earl, who
was gazing into his face with apparently affectionate interest.

"This is very pleasant," said the earl. "Why, bless my soul, I haven't
caught a glimpse of you for--let me see--three or four years is it? What
has been amiss? Genius starving in a garret?--eh?"

"Pretty good guess," said Wyndham.

"You look fat enough, and sleek enough," laughed the earl. "On the face
of things, I should have taken it that you've done very much better than
I have. Now, if you had had to put up with my scoundrel of a cook----"

"There was only one sauce on one occasion, father."

"So you insist, so you insist. Well, you seem pretty straight on your
feet again, my boy; so all's well that ends well."

They sat down to table.

"Making lots of nice little pictures?--eh?" recommenced the earl
genially.

"Oh, the one I am making sketches for