e to the last sitting. On the following evening, Mrs. Taine was
giving a dinner at the house on Fairlands Heights, at which the artist was
to meet some people who would be--as she said--useful to him. Eastern
people they were; from the accredited center of art and literature;
members of the inner circle of the elect. They happened to be spending the
season on the Coast, and she had taken advantage of the opportunity to
advance the painter's interests. It was very fortunate that her portrait
was to be finished in time for them to see it.

The artist was sorry, he said, but, while it would not be necessary for
her to come to the studio again, the picture was not yet finished, and he
could not permit its being exhibited until he was ready to sign the
canvas.

"But I may see it?" she asked, as he laid aside his palette and brushes,
and announced that he was through.

With a quick hand, he drew the curtain. "Not yet; please--not until I am
ready."

"Oh!" she cried with a charming air of submitting to one whose wish is
law, "How mean of you! I know it is splendid! Are you satisfied? Is it
better than the other? Is it like me?"

"I am sure that it is much better than the other," he replied. "It is as
like you as I can make it."

"And is it as beautiful as the other?"

"It is beautiful--as you are beautiful," he answered.

"I shall tell them all about it, to-morrow night--even if I haven't seen
it. And so will Jim Rutlidge."

Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange spent that evening at the little house next
door. The next morning, the artist shut himself up in his studio. At lunch
time, he would not come out. Late in the afternoon, the novelist went,
again, to knock at the door.

The artist called in a voice that rang with triumph, "Come in, old man,
come in and help me celebrate."

Entering, Conrad Lagrange found him; sitting, pale and worn, before his
picture--his palette and brushes still in his hand.

And such a picture!

A moment, the novelist who knew--as few men know--the world that was
revealed with such fidelity in that face upon the canvas, looked; then,
with weird and wonderful oaths of delight, he caught the tired artist and
whirled him around the studio, in a triumphant dance.

"You've done it! man--you've done it! It's all there; every rotten,
stinking shred of it! Wow! but it's good--so damned good that it's almost
inhuman. I knew you had it in you. I knew it was in you, all the time--if
only you could