e him.

Madame de Pastourelles was of middle height, slenderly built, with
pale-brown hair, and a delicately white face, of a very perfect oval.
She had large, quiet eyes, darker than her hair; features small, yet
of a noble outline--strength in refinement. The proud cutting of the
nose and mouth gave delight; it was a pride so unconscious, so masked
in sweetness, that it challenged without wounding. The short upper lip
was sensitive and gay; the eyes ranged in a smiling freedom; the
neck and arms were beautiful. Her dress, according to the Whistlerian
phrase just coming into vogue, might have been called an 'arrangement
in white.' The basis of it seemed to be white velvet; and breast and
hair were powdered with diamonds delicately set in old flower-like
shapes.

'You are in the same house with Mr. Cuningham?' she asked, when a
dean had said grace and the soup was served. Her voice was soft and
courteous; the irritation in Fenwick felt the soothing of it.

'I am on the floor above.'

'He paints charming things.'

Fenwick hesitated.

'You think so?' he said, bluntly, turning to look at her.

She coloured slightly and laughed.

'Do you mean to put me in the Palace of Truth?'

'Of course I would if I could,' said Fenwick, also laughing. 'But I
suppose ladies never say quite what they mean.'

'Oh yes, they do. Well, then, I am not much enamoured of Mr.
Cuningham's pictures. I like _him_, and my father likes his painting.'

'Lord Findon admires that kind of thing?'

'Besides a good many other kinds. Oh! my father has a dreadfully
catholic taste. He tells me you haven't been abroad yet?'

Fenwick acknowledged it.

'Ah, well; of course you'll go. All artists do--except'--she dropped
her voice--'the gentleman opposite.'

Fenwick looked, and beheld a personage scarcely, indeed, to be seen
at all for his very bushy hair, whiskers, and moustache, from
which emerged merely the tip of a nose and a pair of round eyes in
spectacles. As, however, the hair was of an orange colour and the eyes
of a piercing and pinlike sharpness, the eclipse of feature was not
a loss of effect. And as the flamboyant head was a tolerably familiar
object in the shop-windows of the photographers and in the illustrated
papers, Fenwick recognised almost immediately one of the most popular
artists of the day--Mr. Herbert Sherratt.

Fenwick flushed hotly.

'Lord Findon doesn't admire _his_ work?' he said, almost with
fierceness, turning t