him. He had the
feeling that behind his back the face had changed from the profile
position in which it had been painted, so that the steady stone-gray
eyes were challenging his attention. At last he resisted no longer;
walking over to the fireplace, he stood gazing up at it.

For a moment he tried to pretend to himself that his interest was purely
an art-interest. It was Sargent's brush-work that he was admiring. Then
he smiled, as much to the portrait as to himself. "Princess Czarina
Bolsheviki," he murmured, "were you really looking at me when my back
was turned? Did you flash your eyes away directly I obeyed your desire?
It's the trick of every woman; but you're not like every woman, Princess
Czarina Bolsheviki."

It seemed to him almost as though the woman on the canvas was about to
relax her pose and quiver into life. The longer he looked, the less
aloof she became and the more her serenity trembled. He felt that he
knew so much about her--so very much more than he had ever been told.
There were experiences of pride and terror which were common to them
both--the pride and terror of appalling heart-hunger. He knew for
certain, as though those painted lips had confessed it, that he was the
one man in the world who had the power to make her cry. And yet he
dissociated in his mind the woman of the portrait from the woman who had
slipped past him out of the night with the taunting, sideways smile of
feminine triumph. The living woman could wound and disappoint; the
woman of the portrait was his friend entirely.

He was startled out of the mood into which he had fallen by the sound of
footsteps crossing the hall. He was not going to be discovered in that
position by Maisie for a second time. He had barely recovered his place
by the French window, when she and Terry entered laughing. It would have
been easy to have mistaken them for sisters, with their golden heads and
clear complexions. Directly he caught sight of them he guessed by the
mischief in their eyes that their laughter had been at his expense. It
was Terry who spoke. "Oh, Tabs, how could you? It was like a little
frightened boy."

He glanced from one to the other of them for further enlightenment. "Do
what? If you'll let me know, I'll tell you."

"Run away, like you did last night," Maisie explained. "I've just been
describing it to Terry. There was I sitting on the couch when Di
entered. The first thing she asked me was, 'Who's your new butler?' I
would