about it?
Poor Bertha! With her talent!"

The artist paced about, his hands in his jacket pockets. He was smiling
uneasily.

"Did you know anything of this kind was going on?" he asked, without
looking at his wife.

"I had heard nothing whatever. It's ages since Bertha was here."

"Yet you don't seem very much surprised."

"And you?" asked Rosamund, meeting his eyes. "Were you profoundly
astonished?"

"Why, yes. It came very unexpectedly. I had no idea they saw each
other--except in the shop."

"And it vexes you?" said Rosamund, her eyes upon his face.

"Vexes? Oh, I can't say that." He fidgeted, turned about, laughed. "Why
should it vex me? After all, Warburton is such a thoroughly good
fellow, and if he makes money--"

"Money!"

"We _do_ find it useful, you know," insisted Franks, with a certain
obstinacy.

Rosamund was standing before the picture, and gazing at it.

"That she should have no higher ambition! Poor Bertha!"

"We can't all achieve ambitions," cried Franks from the other end of
the room. "Not every girl can marry a popular portrait-painter."

"A great artist!" exclaimed his wife, with emphasis.

As she moved slowly away, she kept her look still turned upon the face
which smiled from the easel. Watching her tremulous eyebrows, her
uncertain lips, one might have fancied that Rosamund sought the
solution of some troublesome doubt, and hoped, only hoped, to find it
in that image of herself so daringly glorified.

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