C---here last autumn, such a charming fellow. He was so interested in
the native customs and dresses. You are a subject painter, too, I think?
Won't you sit down?"

She went on for some time, introducing painters' names, asking questions,
skating round the edge of what was personal. And the young man stood
before her with a curious little smile fixed on his lips. 'She wants to
know whether I'm worth powder and shot,' he thought.

"You wish to paint my nieces?" Mrs. Decie said at last, leaning back on
her settee.

"I wish to have that honour," Harz answered with a bow.

"And what sort of picture did you think of?"

"That," said Harz, "is in the future. I couldn't tell you." And he
thought: 'Will she ask me if I get my tints in Paris, like the woman
Tramper told me of?'

The perpetual pale smile on Mrs. Decie's face seemed to invite his
confidence, yet to warn him that his words would be sucked in somewhere
behind those broad fine brows, and carefully sorted. Mrs. Decie, indeed,
was thinking: 'Interesting young man, regular Bohemian--no harm in that
at his age; something Napoleonic in his face; probably has no dress
clothes. Yes, should like to see more of him!' She had a fine eye for
points of celebrity; his name was unfamiliar, would probably have been
scouted by that famous artist Mr. C---, but she felt her instinct urging
her on to know him. She was, to do her justice, one of those "lion"
finders who seek the animal for pleasure, not for the glory it brings
them; she had the courage of her instincts--lion-entities were
indispensable to her, but she trusted to divination to secure them;
nobody could foist a "lion" on her.

"It will be very nice. You will stay and have some lunch? The
arrangements here are rather odd. Such a mixed household--but there is
always lunch at two o'clock for any one who likes, and we all dine at
seven. You would have your sittings in the afternoons, perhaps? I
should so like to see your sketches. You are using the old house on the
wall for studio; that is so original of you!"

Harz would not stay to lunch, but asked if he might begin work that
afternoon; he left a little suffocated by the sandalwood and sympathy of
this sphinx-like woman.

Walking home along the river wall, with the singing of the larks and
thrushes, the rush of waters, the humming of the chafers in his ears, he
felt that he would make something fine of this subject. Before his eyes
the faces of t