ys making more or less
than there really was of her. You were speaking the other night at
Wetmore's, of the uncertain quality of her beauty, and the danger of
getting something else in," said Ludlow, suddenly grappling with the
fact, "and I was always doing that, or else leaving everything out. Her
beauty has no fixed impression. It ranges from something exquisite to
something grotesque; just as she ranges in character from the noblest
generosity to the most inconceivable absurdity. You never can know how
she will look or how she will behave. At least, _I_ couldn't. I was
always guessing at her; but Miss Saunders seemed to understand her. All
her studies of her are alike; the last might be taken for the first,
except that the handling is better. It's invariably the very person,
without being in the least photographic, as people call it, because it
is one woman's unclouded perception of another. The only question is
whether Miss Saunders can keep that saving simplicity. It may be
trained out of her, or she may be taught to put other things before it.
Wetmore felt the danger of that, when we looked at her sketches. I'm
not saying they're not full of faults; the technique is bad enough;
sometimes it's almost childish; but the root of the matter is there.
She knows what she sees, and she tells."

"Really?" said Mrs. Westley. "It _is_ hard for a woman to believe much
in women; we don't expect anything of each other yet. Should you like
her to paint me?"

"I?"

"I mean, do you think she could do it?"

"Not yet. She doesn't know enough of life, even if she knew enough of
art. She merely painted another girl."

"That is true," said Mrs. Westley with a sigh. She added impersonally;
"But if people only kept to what they knew, and didn't do what they
divined, there would be very little art or literature left, it seems to
me."

"Well, perhaps the less the better." said Ludlow, with a smile for the
absurdity he was reduced to. "What was left would certainty be the
best."

He felt as if his praise of Cornelia were somehow retrieval; as if it
would avail where he seemed otherwise so helpless, and would bring them
together on the old terms again. There was, indeed, nothing explicit in
their alienation, and when he saw Cornelia at Mrs. Westley's first
Thursday, he made his way to her at once, and asked her if she would
give him some tea, with the effect of having had a cup from her the day
before. He did not know whether to be