ver anything was. Did Miss Jones
not recognize the intellectual triumphs embodied in that presentment of
frail woman-hood? I was certainly piqued, though I replied very
good-humouredly:

"I had rather flattered myself that my picture could boast of that
quality."

Miss Jones's glance now rested on me rather seriously.

"An inspired work of art should elevate the mind."

I could not for the life of me tell whether she was really rather clever
or merely very banal and commonplace.

"I had hoped," I rejoined, politely, "that my picture--as a beautiful
work of art--would also possess that faculty."

Miss Jones now looked at the clock, and remarked that it was time to
pose. She mounted the low stand and I resumed my palette and brushes,
feeling decidedly snubbed. Carrington sauntered in shortly after, his
forefinger in a book and a pipe between his teeth. He apologized to Miss
Jones for the latter, and wished to know if she objected. Miss Jones's
smile retained all its unabashed clearness as she replied:

"It _is_ a rather nasty smell, I think."

Poor Carrington, decidedly disconcerted, knocked out his pipe and laid
it down, and Miss Jones, observing him affably while she retained her
pose to perfection, added: "I have been brought up to disapprove of
smoking, you see; papa doesn't believe in tobacco."

Miss Jones's aplomb was certainly enough to make any man feel awkward,
and Carrington looked so as he came up beside me and examined my work.

"By Jove! Fletcher," he said, "the resemblance is astonishing--_and_ the
lack of resemblance. That's the triumph--the material likeness, the
spiritual unlikeness."

Indeed, Miss Jones could lay no claim to the "inspiration" of my work;
in intrinsic character the face of my pretty _scelerate_ was in no way
Miss Jones's.

"Charming, charming," and Carrington's eye, passing from my canvas,
rested on Miss Jones.

"Which?" I asked, smiling, and, of course, in an undertone.

"It depends, my dear boy, on whether you ask me if I prefer Phryne or
Priscilla--pagan or puritan; both are interesting types, and the
contrast can be very effectually studied here in your picture and your
model."

"Yet Priscilla lends herself wonderfully to be interpreted as Phryne."

"Or, rather, it is wonderful that you should have imagined Manon into
that face."

In the next rest, when Carrington had gone, Miss Jones said:

"Mr. Carrington walked home with me yesterday. Papa thinks rather highl