"Don't like it!" said Dobbs Broughton.

"It's strange, isn't it? But I don't."

"I thought you particularly told me to drink his claret?" said Johnny
to his friend afterwards.

"So I did," said Conway; "and wonderfully good wine it is. But I make
it a rule never to eat or drink anything in a man's house when he
praises himself and tells me the price of it."

"And I make it a rule never to cut the nose off my own face," said
Johnny.

Before they went, Johnny Eames had been specially invited to call
on Lady Demolines, and had said that he would do so. "We live in
Porchester Gardens," said Miss Demolines. "Upon my word, I believe
that the farther London stretches in that direction, the farther
mamma will go. She thinks the air so much better. I know it's a long
way."

"Distance is nothing to me," said Johnny; "I can always set off over
night."

Conway Dalrymple did not get invited to call on Mrs. Van Siever, but
before he left the house he did say a word or two more to his friend
Mrs. Broughton as to Clara Van Siever. "She is a fine young woman," he
said; "she is indeed."

"You have found it out, have you?"

"Yes; I have found it out. I do not doubt that some day she'll
murder her husband or her mother, or startle the world by some
newly-invented crime; but that only makes her the more interesting."

"And when you add to that all the old woman's money," said Mrs. Dobbs
Broughton, "you think that she might do?"

"For a picture, certainly. I'm speaking of her simply as a model.
Could we not manage it? Get her once here, without her mother knowing
it, or Broughton, or any one. I've got the subject,--Jael and Sisera,
you know. I should like to put Musselboro in as Sisera, with the nail
half driven in." Mrs. Dobbs Broughton declared that the scheme was a
great deal too wicked for her participation, but at last she promised
to think of it.

"You might as well come up and have a cigar," Dalrymple said, as he
and his friend left Mrs. Broughton's house. Johnny said that he would
go up and have a cigar or two. "And now tell me what you think of Mrs
Dobbs Broughton and her set," said Conway.

"Well; I'll tell you what I think of them. I think they stink of
money, as the people say; but I'm not sure that they've got any all
the same."

"I suppose he makes a large income."

"Very likely, and perhaps spends more than he makes. A good deal of
it looked to me like make-believe. There's no doubt about the claret,
bu