: 'It should
be called Diaphaneite, if there is such a word. Ah! This is the last
expression of modernity!' She puts up suddenly her face-a-main and looks
towards the end wall. 'And that--Byzantium itself! Who was she, this
sullen and beautiful Empress?'

"'The one I had in my mind was Theodosia!' Allegre consented to answer.
'Originally a slave girl--from somewhere.'

"My mother can be marvellously indiscreet when the whim takes her. She
finds nothing better to do than to ask the 'Master' why he took his
inspiration for those two faces from the same model. No doubt she was
proud of her discerning eye. It was really clever of her. Allegre,
however, looked on it as a colossal impertinence; but he answered in his
silkiest tones:

"'Perhaps it is because I saw in that woman something of the women of all
time.'

"My mother might have guessed that she was on thin ice there. She is
extremely intelligent. Moreover, she ought to have known. But women can
be miraculously dense sometimes. So she exclaims, 'Then she is a
wonder!' And with some notion of being complimentary goes on to say that
only the eyes of the discoverer of so many wonders of art could have
discovered something so marvellous in life. I suppose Allegre lost his
temper altogether then; or perhaps he only wanted to pay my mother out,
for all these 'Masters' she had been throwing at his head for the last
two hours. He insinuates with the utmost politeness:

"'As you are honouring my poor collection with a visit you may like to
judge for yourself as to the inspiration of these two pictures. She is
upstairs changing her dress after our morning ride. But she wouldn't be
very long. She might be a little surprised at first to be called down
like this, but with a few words of preparation and purely as a matter of
art . . .'

"There were never two people more taken aback. Versoy himself confesses
that he dropped his tall hat with a crash. I am a dutiful son, I hope,
but I must say I should have liked to have seen the retreat down the
great staircase. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

He laughed most undutifully and then his face twitched grimly.

"That implacable brute Allegre followed them down ceremoniously and put
my mother into the fiacre at the door with the greatest deference. He
didn't open his lips though, and made a great bow as the fiacre drove
away. My mother didn't recover from her consternation for three days. I
lunch with her almost daily a