mportance of the event. Milly
thought to herself, "How wonderful if he should do a really stunning
picture and have it in the Salon next season!" and she said to herself,
"Portrait of the Baroness Saratoff by John Archer Bragdon." That would
be a start towards fame!

But the start was scarcely perceptible those first days. Milly could
make nothing of the blurred canvas and was depressed. Jack seemed more
intent on watching the lithe figure, with the mottled flesh tones, the
steel-blue eyes, the mocking mouth than in putting brush to canvas. When
Milly complained of his dawdling, the Baroness remarked with a curl of
her lips,--

"How do you expect an artist to work with his wife hanging over his
brushes and counting every stroke?"

Milly pretended to be hurt and ran off to the other end of the garden.
She asked her husband on their way back if she were really in the way,
and though he laughed at her question and considered the Russian woman's
remark as merely one of her rather feline jokes, Milly did not come the
next day. She said the baby was sick, and needed her attention. It was
several days before she returned to the _manoir_, and then because Jack
made a point of it. She was astonished at the progress which he had
made. The picture had suddenly leaped into life.

"See!" the Russian remarked, indicating the canvas with a slow sweep of
her long, thin fingers. "The painter has done all that without his
wife's help."

Milly resented the joke. But it was true that in these few days the
picture had grown surprisingly: the pose of the tall figure, the
background was all firmly worked in, and he had begun to define the
features,--the perilous part. Already something of the subtle mockery of
the Russian woman's expression was there. Milly turned away. For the
first time she felt outside her husband's world and in the way.
Presently, in spite of the Baroness's protests, she took little Paul
Saratoff to the beach. When her husband came in at the hotel just in
time for dinner and expressed surprise that she had not returned to the
_manoir_ for him, she said coldly,--

"Oh, I didn't care to--I didn't want to interrupt."

"Anna expected you back to tea."

"I guess not."

Bragdon gave her a swift glance, but said nothing. This was a new aspect
of his wife, and it evidently puzzled him. He was too much absorbed by
his picture, however, to give much heed to anything.

* * * * *

Latterl