y, which
was Sunday. And Warburton went.

He was nervous as he knocked at the door; he was rather more nervous as
he walked into the studio. Norbert advanced to him with a shout of
welcome, and from a chair in the background rose Mrs. Franks.
Perceptibly changed, both of them. The artist's look was not quite so
ingenuous as formerly; his speech, resolute in friendliness, had not
quite the familiar note. Rosamund, already more mature of aspect,
smiled somewhat too persistently, seemed rather too bent on showing
herself unembarrassed. They plunged into talk of Tyrol, of the
Dolomites, of Venice, and, so talking, passed into the dining-room.

"Queer little house this, isn't it?" said Mrs. Franks as she sat down
to table. "Everything is sacrificed to the studio; there's no room to
turn anywhere else. We must look at once for more comfortable quarters."

"It's only meant for a man living alone," said the artist, with a
laugh. Franks laughed frequently, whether what he said was amusing or
not. "Yes, we must find something roomier.

"A score of sitters waiting for you, I suppose?" said Warburton.

"Oh, several. One of them such an awful phiz that I'm afraid of her. If
I make her presentable, it'll be my greatest feat yet. But the labourer
is worthy of his hire, you know, and this bit of beauty-making will
have its price."

"You know how to interpret _that_, Mr. Warburton," said Rosamund, with
a discreetly confidential smile. "Norbert asks very much less than any
other portrait painter of his reputation would."

"He'll grow out of that bad habit," Will replied. His note was one of
joviality, almost of bluffness.

"I'm not sure that I wish him to," said the painter's wife, her eyes
straying as if in a sudden dreaminess. "It's a distinction nowadays not
to care for money. Norbert jokes about making an ugly woman beautiful,"
she went on earnestly, "but what he will really do is to discover the
very best aspect of the face, and so make something much more than an
ordinary likeness."

Franks fidgeted, his head bent over his plate.

"That's the work of the great artist," exclaimed Warburton, boldly
flattering.

"Humbug!" growled Franks, but at once he laughed and glanced nervously
at his wife.

Though this was Rosamund's only direct utterance on the subject,
Warburton discovered from the course of the conversation, that she
wished to be known as her husband's fervent admirer, that she took him
with the utmost seriousn