.

'Of all the words in the dictionary--that word is the most
detestable!' she declared. 'It ought to be banished. Well, thank
goodness, it _is_ generally banished.'

'That's only because we all like to hide our heads in the sand--you
who possess the privileges--and we who envy them!'

'I vow I don't possess any privileges at all,' she said, with
defiance.

'You say so, because you breathe them--live in them--like the
air--without knowing it,' said Fenwick, also trying to speak lightly.
Then he added, suddenly putting down his palette and brushes, while
his black eyes lightened--'And so does Mr. Welby. You can see from
his pictures that he doesn't know anything about common, coarse
people--_real_ people--who make up the world. He paints wax, and calls
it life; and you--'

'Go on!--_please_ go on!'

'I shall only make a fool of myself,' he said, taking up his brushes
again.

'Not at all. And I praise humbug?--and call it manners?'

He paused, then blurted out--'I wouldn't say anything rude to you for
the world!'

She smiled--a smile that turned all the delicate severity of her face
to sweetness. 'That's very nice of you. But if you knew Mr. Welby
better, you'd never want to say anything rude to _him_ either!'

Fenwick was silent. Madame de Pastourelles, feeling that for the
moment she also had come to the end of her tether, fell into a
reverie, from which she was presently roused by finding Fenwick
standing before her, palette in hand.

'I don't want you to think me an envious brute,' he said, stammering.
'Of course, I know the "Polyxena" is a fine thing--a very fine thing.'

She looked a little surprised--as though he offered her moods to which
she had no key. 'Shall I show you something I like much better?' she
said, with quick resource. And drawing towards her a small portfolio
she had brought with her, she took out a drawing and handed it to him.
'I am taking it to be framed. Isn't it beautiful?'

It was a drawing, in silver-point, of an orange-tree in mingled fruit
and bloom--an exquisite piece of work, of a Japanese truth, intricacy,
and perfection. Fenwick looked at it in silence. These silver-point
drawings of Welby's were already famous. In the preceding May there
had been an exhibition of them at an artistic club. At the top of
the drawing was an inscription in a minute handwriting--'Sorrento:
Christmas Day,' with the monogram 'A.W.' and a date three years old.

As Madame de Pastourelles perc