thinks, in
hopes of being contradicted. No, it expressed a weary, but unalterable
contempt for the gift of beauty; it was the tone of one who has to drag
a sack of gold through a desert, and sighs from the very core of his
heart, 'I would give it all for one morsel of bread.'

"Then, too, her way of expressing herself, showed more culture than you
usually find amongst girls who hire themselves out to be painted. It
was easy to see that the fair creature had some strange story connected
with her.

"'Nay, nay,' said I, 'if you had chosen your own face you would not
have shown bad taste in the matter. And though, indeed, beauty is
transient, while ugliness endures, and there may be inconveniences, or
even dangers in the impressions it makes on those who see you, still
you would hardly convince me, young lady, that you are seriously
annoyed at having such a face. You would be quite unique if it were
so.'

"'You may think what you like,' she replied negligently, and her lovely
full upper lip assumed a scornful expression. 'I know perfectly well
what men are. If a poor thing is vain of her little bit of pink and
white, _that_ does not suit them, and if she is not vain at all, but
rather curses the beauty which has cost her so dear, why that will not
please them either! But after all I have nothing to do with setting
other people right, it is enough that I know what I know.'

"After this unflattering declaration came a long pause. Mynheer van
Kuylen sat at his easel, and attempted by the tenderest glazing to
convey the smoothness of that skin, and the lustre of those moist eyes;
the child had laid down her stocking, and was turning the pages of a
picture-book, and by way of putting a good face on my embarrassment I
lit a cigar.

"'You have no objection, Miss?' I enquired in my most ingratiating
tones.

"She slightly nodded, and in so doing gave a sigh, and her delicate
nostrils quivered.

"'May one venture to ask your name, Fraeulein?' I resumed after a while.

"'My name is Katharine,' she replied in the same curt, out-spoken way.
'But all who know me call me Kate. As to my parent's name that would
not interest you.'

"'Miss Kate,' I said, 'I notice from your manner of speech that you do
not belong to Munich."

"'No.'

"'Your accent has something Rhinelandish about it.'

"'Very possibly.'

"'Have you any reasons for objecting to speak of your home?'

"'Why do you ask?'

"'I should like one of these days t