. He saw her and came forward to meet her with eagerness,
holding out his hand, and smiling mechanically with even more than his
usual intention.

"What a success!" she said.

"If it is, your portrait makes it so."

"And where is my portrait?"

Robin Pierce nipped in the bud a rather cynical smile. The painter wiped
his forehead with a white silk handkerchief.

"Can't you guess? Look where the crowd is thickest."

The people had again closed densely round the two pictures.

"You are an artist in more ways than one, I'm afraid," said Lady Holme.
"Don't turn my head more than the heat has."

The searching expression, that indicated the strong desire to say
something memorable, once more contorted the painter's face.

"He who would essay to fix beauty on canvas," he began, in a rather
piercing voice, "should combine two gifts."

He paused and lifted his upper lip two or three times, employing his
under-jaw as a lever.

"Yes?" said Lady Holme, encouragingly.

"The gift of the brush which perpetuates and the gift of--er--gift of
the--"

His intellect once more retreated from him into some distant place and
left him murmuring:

"Beauty demands all, beauty demands all. Yes, yes! Sacrifice! Sacrifice!
Isn't it so?"

He tugged at his large moustache, with an abrupt assumption of the
cavalry officer's manner, which he doubtless deemed to be in accordance
with his momentary muddle-headedness.

"And you give it what it wants most--the touch of the ideal. It blesses
you. Can we get through?"

She had glanced at Robin while she spoke the first words. Ashley
Greaves, with an expression of sudden relief, began very politely to
hustle the crowd, which yielded to his persuasive shoulders, and Lady
Holme found herself within looking distance of the two portraits, and
speaking distance of Mrs. Wolfstein and Miss Schley. She greeted them
with a nod that was more gay and friendly than her usual salutations to
women, which often lacked _bonhomie_. Mrs. Wolfstein's too expressive
face lit up.

"The sensation is complete!" she exclaimed loudly.

"Hope you're well," murmured Miss Schley, letting her pale eyes rest on
Lady Holme for about a quarter of a second, and then becoming acutely
attentive to vacancy.

Lady Holme was now in front of the pictures. She looked at Miss Schley's
portrait with apparent interest, while Mrs. Wolfstein looked at her with
an interest that was maliciously real.

"Well?" said Mrs. Wolfstei