ully. "It, it grips you so. I can't
seem to get away from it. I can see that it will create a sensation. But
just the same, I don't like it. It's not nice, like your portrait of me.
By the way"--and she turned eagerly from the big canvas as though glad to
escape a distasteful subject--"do you remember that I have never seen my
picture yet? Where do you keep it?"

The painter indicated another easel, near the one upon which he was at
work, "It is there, Mrs. Taine."

"Oh," she said with a pleased smile. "You keep it on the easel, still!"
Playfully, she added, "Do you look at it often?--that you have it so
handy?"

"Yes," said the artist, "I must admit that I have looked at it
frequently." He did not explain why he looked at her portrait while he was
working upon the larger picture.

"How nice of you," she answered "Please let me see it now. I remember when
you wanted to repaint it, you said you would put on the canvas just what
you thought of me; have you? I wonder!"

"I would rather that you judge for yourself, Mrs. Taine," he answered, and
drew the curtain that hid the painting.

As the woman looked upon that portrait of herself, into which Aaron King
had painted, with all the skill at his command, everything that he had
seen in her face as she posed for him, she stood a moment as though
stunned. Then, with a gesture of horror and shame, she shrank back, as
though the painted thing accused her of being what, indeed, she really
was.

Turning to the artist, imploringly, she whispered, "Is it--is it--true? Am
I--am I _that_?"

Aaron King, remembering how she had sent the girl he loved so nearly to a
shameful end, and thinking of those bones at the foot of the cliff,
answered justly; "At least, madam, there is more truth in that picture
than in the things you said to Miss Andres, here in this room, the day you
left Fairlands."

Her face went white with quick rage, but, controling herself, she said,
"And where is the picture of your _mistress_? I should like to see it
again, please."

"Gladly, madam," returned the artist. "Because you are a woman, it is the
only answer I can make to your charge; which, permit me to say, is as
false as that portrait of you is true."

Quickly he pushed another easel to a position beside the one that held
Mrs. Taine's portrait, and drew the curtain.

The effect, for a moment, silenced even Mrs. Taine--but only for a moment.
A character that is the product of certain years of sc