inexplicable feeling, turned to look at her. Instantly the eyes of the
man and of the artist agreed in an amazed affirmation. The artist in
Peter got the better, and gave him authority.

"Wait a minute," he bade her. "Stand there."

She obeyed him, and looked inquiringly yet languidly. The angry man in
him told him at once that she could obey because she was indifferent to
his reasons for commanding her. Out of that indifference she stood and
looked at him, kind, friendly, yet as far from him as the remoter stars.
He stared at her and thought of brush and canvas. Never had he seen a
woman so alive. Her eyes, her wayward hair, her very flesh seemed
touched with flame. Her lips had softened into a full curve, strange
contrast to their former patient sweetness. The pupils of her eyes,
distended, gave her face a tragic power. As he gazed, that wild bright
beauty seemed to fade. Her eyes lost their reminiscent look and inquired
of him sanely. The lips tightened a little. Her languor gave place to a
steady poise. Now she shook her head with a pretty motion, as if she
cast off memories.

"Do I look nice to-night?" she said kindly, as if she spoke to an
admiring boy. "Do you want to paint me?"

Peter turned aside with an exclamation under his breath. He had never,
again he told himself, seen a woman so alive, so radiating beauty as if
it bloomed and faded while he looked at her. She was beginning to mount
the stairs.

"Good-night," she called back to him, with her perfect kindliness.
"Good-night, Peter."

X

Madam Fulton and Billy Stark sat in the library, wrangling.

"I say she'll come," said Madam Fulton.

"I say she won't," replied Billy with a hearty zest. "No woman of
self-respect would."

"Maybe she hasn't self-respect."

"Oh, you go 'way, Florrie. Of course she has, any girl as pretty as
that."

Madam Fulton looked at him smilingly. There were few left, nowadays, to
call her Florrie.

"You see Electra never in the world would have invited her," she
continued. "I simply did it, and she had to confirm it or appear like a
brute. Electra won't do that. She's willing to appear like a long and
symmetrical icicle, but not a brute."

That was it. She had boldly asked Rose to luncheon, and then told
Electra she had done it. Now it was fifteen minutes to the time, and the
hostess had not appeared. Madam Fulton looked up from her work. There
was a laughing cherub in each eye. Her work, let it be said, wa