now. I'd take my chances with
you for a judge a lot sooner than I'd like to with loads of people who
aren't half so ready to call you a blame' fool."

"While you have been making these valuable discoveries in character,
what do you suppose I have been doing, Mrs. Hawthorne?" asked Gerald,
after the time it would take to bow ceremoniously in acknowledgement of
a compliment.

"Oh, finding out things about me, I suppose."

"Not things. One thing. I had known you for some length of time before
my felicitous invention of the portrait, you remember, and as you are
barely more elusive than the primary colors, or more intricate than the
three virtues, I did not suppose I had anything more to learn. But I
had. It can't be said I didn't suspect it. I had seen signs of it. I
smelled it, as it were. But I had no idea of its extent, its magnitude,
its importance. It is simply amazing, bewildering, funny."

"For goodness' sake, what?" she cried, breathless with interest.

"I can't tell you. It would ill become me to say. The least mention of
it on my part would be the height of impertinence. The thing is none of
my business. Be so kind as to resume the pose, Mrs. Hawthorne, and to
keep very, very still, like a good girl. Do not speak, please, for some
time; I am working on your mouth."

Gerald had indeed been astonished, amused, appalled. He had in a general
way known that Mrs. Hawthorne was prodigal, the impression one received
of her at first sight prepared one to find her generous; but he had
formed no idea of the ease and magnificence with which she got rid of
money.

In the time so far devoted to painting her he had grown quite accustomed
to a little scene that almost daily repeated itself--a scene which he,
busy at his side of the room, was presumably not supposed to see, or, if
he saw it, to think anything about.

Clotilde would come in with a look of great discretion, a smile of great
modesty, and stand hesitating, like a person with a communication to
make, but not sufficient boldness to interrupt. Aurora, always glad to
drop the pose, would excuse herself to Gerald and ask what Clotilde
wanted. Clotilde would then approach and speak low,--not so low,
however, but that in spite of him messages and meanings were telegraphed
to Gerald's brain. The look itself of the unsealed envelopes in
Clotilde's hand was to Gerald's eye full of information. She would
sometimes extract and unfold a document for Aurora to look at; bu