--"

He caught sight of the third figure standing a little behind the
Fentons and stopped abruptly. His eyes seemed to flinch for a moment.
Then he made a quick step forward.

"Why, Nan!" he exclaimed. "This is a most charming surprise."

His voice and manner were perfectly composed; only his intense paleness
and the compression of his fine-cut nostrils betrayed any agitation.
Nan had seen that "white" look on his face before.

Then Penelope rushed in with some commonplace remark and the brief
tension was over.

"Come and see my Mrs. T. Van Decken," said Rooke presently. "The
light's pretty fair now, but it will be gone after tea."

They trooped out of the room and into the studio, where several other
people, who had already examined the great portrait, were still
strolling about looking at various paintings and sketches.

It was a big bare barn of a place with its cold north light, for Rooke,
sybarite as he was in other respects, treated his work from a Spartan
standpoint which permitted necessities only in his studio.

"Empty great barrack, isn't it?" he said to Nan. "But I can't bear to
be crowded up with extraneous hangings and draperies like some fellows.
It stifles me."

She nodded sympathetically.

"I know. I like an empty music-room."

"You still work? Ah, that's good. You shall tell me about
it--afterwards--when this crowd has gone. Oh, Nan, there'll be such a
lot to say!"

His glance held her a moment, and she flushed under it. Those queer
eyes of his had lost none of their old magnetic power. He turned away
with a short, amused laugh, and the next moment was listening
courteously to an elderly duchess's gushing eulogy of his work.

Nan remained quietly where she was, gazing at the big picture of the
famous American beauty. It was a fine piece of work; the lights and
shadows had been handled magnificently, and it was small wonder that
the man who could produce such work had leaped into the foremost rank
of portrait-painters. She felt very glad of his success, remembering
how bitter he had been in former days over his failure to obtain
recognition. She turned and, finding him beside her again, spoke her
thought quite simply.

"You've made good at last, Maryon. You've no grudge against the world
now."

He looked down at her oddly.

"Haven't I? . . . Well, you should know," he replied.

She gave a little impatient twist of her shoulders. He hadn't altered
at all, it seemed;