ainting as
"chafing-dish" art. On a certain late afternoon of December, some four
years after Mr. Popple's first meeting with Miss Undine Spragg of Apex,
even the symbolic chafing-dish was nowhere visible in his studio; the
only evidence of its recent activity being the full-length portrait of
Mrs. Ralph Marvell, who, from her lofty easel and her heavily garlanded
frame, faced the doorway with the air of having been invited to
"receive" for Mr. Popple.

The artist himself, becomingly clad in mouse-coloured velveteen, had
just turned away from the picture to hover above the tea-cups; but his
place had been taken by the considerably broader bulk of Mr. Peter Van
Degen, who, tightly moulded into a coat of the latest cut, stood before
the portrait in the attitude of a first arrival.

"Yes, it's good--it's damn good, Popp; you've hit the hair off
ripplingly; but the pearls ain't big enough," he pronounced.

A slight laugh sounded from the raised dais behind the easel.

"Of course they're not! But it's not HIS fault, poor man; HE didn't give
them to me!" As she spoke Mrs. Ralph Marvell rose from a monumental gilt
arm-chair of pseudo-Venetian design and swept her long draperies to Van
Degen's side.

"He might, then--for the privilege of painting you!" the latter
rejoined, transferring his bulging stare from the counterfeit to the
original. His eyes rested on Mrs. Marvell's in what seemed a quick
exchange of understanding; then they passed on to a critical inspection
of her person. She was dressed for the sitting in something faint and
shining, above which the long curves of her neck looked dead white in
the cold light of the studio; and her hair, all a shadowless rosy gold,
was starred with a hard glitter of diamonds.

"The privilege of painting me? Mercy, _I_ have to pay for being painted!
He'll tell you he's giving me the picture--but what do you suppose this
cost?" She laid a finger-tip on her shimmering dress.

Van Degen's eye rested on her with cold enjoyment. "Does the price come
higher than the dress?"

She ignored the allusion. "Of course what they charge for is the cut--"

"What they cut away? That's what they ought to charge for, ain't it,
Popp?"

Undine took this with cool disdain, but Mr. Popple's sensibilities were
offended.

"My dear Peter--really--the artist, you understand, sees all this as a
pure question of colour, of pattern; and it's a point of honour with the
MAN to steel himself against the