ess, and was resolved that everybody else
should do so. The "great artist" phrase gave her genuine pleasure; she
rewarded Will with the kindest look of her beautiful eyes, and from
that moment appeared to experience a relief, so that her talk flowed
more naturally. Luncheon over, they returned to the studio, where the
men lit their pipes, while Rosamund, at her husband's entreaty,
exhibited the sketches she had brought home.

"Why didn't you let me hear from you?" asked Warburton. "I got nothing
but that flimsy postcard from Venice."

"Why, I was always meaning to write," answered the artist. "I know it
was too bad. But time goes so quickly--"

"With you, no doubt. But if you stood behind a counter all day--"

Will saw the listeners exchange a startled glance, followed by an
artificial smile. There was an instant's dead silence.

"Behind a counter--?" fell from Norbert, as if he failed to understand.

"The counter; _my_ counter!" shouted Will blusterously. "You know very
well what I mean. Your wife has told you all about it."

Rosamund flushed, and could not raise her eyes.

"We didn't know," said Franks, with his nervous little laugh, "whether
you cared--to talk about it--"

"I'll talk about it with any one you like. So you _do_ know? That's all
right. I still owe my apology to Mrs. Franks for having given her such
a shock. The disclosure was really too sudden."

"It is I who should beg you to forgive me, Mr. Warburton," replied
Rosamund, in her sweetest accents. "I behaved in a very silly way. But
my friend Bertha Cross treated me as I deserved. She declared that she
was ashamed of me. But do not, pray do not, think me worse than I was.
I ran away really because I felt I had surprised a secret. I was
embarrassed,--I lost my head. I'm sure you don't think me capable of
really mean feelings?"

"But, old man," put in the artist, in a half pained voice, "what the
deuce does it all mean? Tell us the whole story, do."

Will told it, jestingly, effectively.

"I was _quite_ sure," sounded, at the close, in Rosamund's voice of
tender sympathy, "that you had some noble motive. I said so at once to
Bertha."

"I suppose," said Will, "Miss Cross will never dare to enter the shop
again?"

"She doesn't come!"

"Never since," he answered laughingly. "Her mother has been once or
twice, and seems to regard me with a very suspicious eye. Mrs. Cross
was told no doubt?"

"That I really can't say," replied Rosamund, a