shrugged with a gesture of elision, in which
the essence of many scandals, generated and discussed in the
discreet undertones of the ladies' hour, was nicely distributed.

"Don't be dense, Hugh! It is quite notorious!"

Mr. Dollond laughed his broad, tolerant laugh.

"Well," he said, "I should never have thought it."

Rainham, reaching his hotel the same afternoon, met Mrs. Engel in
the hall; her formal bow, in which frosty disapproval of the sin,
and a widow's tenderness for the middle-aged sinner, if repentant,
were discreetly mingled, amused if it scarcely flattered him. He was
still smiling at his recollection of the interview when the Swiss
porter, accosting him in elaborately bad English, informed him that
a lady and gentleman, who had left on the previous evening, had made
particular inquiries after him. The name, he confessed, escaped him,
but if Monsieur pleased---- He produced the visitors' book, in which
Rainham read, scarcely now with surprise, the brief inscription,
"Mr. and Mrs. Lightmark, from Cannes."

CHAPTER XVII

There was a ceaseless hum of voices in the labyrinth of brilliant
rooms, with their atmosphere of transient spring sunshine and
permeating, faint odour of fresh paint. Few people came to see the
pictures, which covered the walls with a crude patchwork of seas and
goddesses, portraits and landscapes: all that by popular repute were
worth seeing had been exhibited already to the people who were now
invited to view them,--at the studios on Show Sunday, and on the
Outsiders' Day. One entered the gloomy gates of Burlington House on
the yearly occasion of the Private View because it was, socially, a
great public function, in order to see the celebrities, who were
sure to be there, from the latest actress to the newest bishop. In
one corner a belated critic endeavoured to scratch hasty impressions
on his shirt-cuff or the margin of a little square catalogue; in
another an interested dealer used his best endeavours to rivet a
patron's attention on the merits of his speculative purchase. The
providers of the feast were not so much in evidence as their wives
and daughters; the artist often affects to despise the occasion, and
contents himself with a general survey--frequently limited to his
own pictures--on Varnishing Day.

The Hanging Committee had dealt kindly with Lightmark's Academy
picture. When it was passed in review before these veterans, after a
long procession of inanely smilin