and bringing his highest
powers to a sudden birth. He had begun and almost finished the work
which Audrey had urged him to undertake, and nobody could say that he
had approached his subject in a frivolous spirit. It was a portrait of
herself. Ted had been rather inclined to affect the romantic antique:
Audrey had been a revelation of the artistic possibilities of modern
womanhood, and he turned in disgust from his languid studies of decadent
renaissance, or renaissant decadence, to this brilliant type. One corner
of the studio was stacked with sketches and little full-length portraits
of Audrey. Audrey from every point of view. Audrey in a black
Gainsborough hat, Audrey with brown fur about her throat, Audrey
half-smothered in billowy silk and chiffon, Audrey as she appeared at a
dance in a simple frock and sash, and Audrey in a tailor-made gown, in
the straight lines of which Ted professed to have discovered new
principles of beauty. In fact, he dreamed of founding a New Art on
portraits of Audrey alone. From which it would appear that he was
taking himself and his art very seriously indeed.

Audrey had just left him after a protracted sitting, and up among the
dreamy chimney-pots he was reviving in fancy the sensations of the
morning. He was brought back from his ecstasy by Katherine's voice
calling, "Ted, come down this minute--I've got something to show you";
and, rousing himself very much against the grain, he dropped languidly
into the room below.

Katherine had come in all glowing with excitement. She pushed back her
broad-brimmed hat from her forehead, and thrust both hands into her
coat-pockets, bringing out two loose heaps of gold.

"There!" she said, letting sovereigns and half-sovereigns drip on to the
table with an impressive chink, "aren't you thankful that I wasn't
murdered, walking through the great sinful city with all that capital
about me?"

"What's up? Has our uncle climbed down, or have you been robbing a
till?"

"Neither. I've been to the bank, cashing real live cheques. Five pounds
for my black-and-white for the Saint Abroad, I mean the "Woman at Home."
Fifteen pounds for Miss Maskelyne's prize bull-dog (I idealised him).
Twenty pounds for Lady Stodart's prize baby. Total, forty pounds." She
arranged the sovereigns in neat little piles on the table. "That's
enough to take you to Paris and set you going." Ted started, and his
face fell a little. "It's positively my only dream that ever came t