s displeasure at her ways. So he
spent as much time as possible away from the studio. Mrs. Brendon's
portrait was finished and displayed in her drawing-room. This time Jerry
escorted Jane himself. She was a great success; her gracious but
impersonal manner interested people. She was indifferent to their likes
or dislikes, yet not rudely so. Mrs. Brendon was impressed with her and
told Jerry so.

"She can be a great social success, Jerry."

"She can, but she won't. It bores her."

"What if it does? Has she no consideration for your career?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"We must make some plans to really launch her. Abercrombie says she has
brains."

"No use making any plans for Jane. She makes and breaks her own," said
Jerry.

It was an aggravation, the way she failed to follow up social
opportunities. He complained to her about it and she announced herself
absolutely ready to do anything he desired which would help his career.

"You can see that a portrait painter has to cultivate the people who
have portraits painted, can't you?"

"Wouldn't you be freer to work out your own ideas, to develop what is
really yours, if you did some other kind of painting, Jerry?"

"Yes, and we would be living in a garret."

"But I wouldn't mind that at all, if it meant that you were growing."

"I suppose you've been talking to Bobs."

"No. I don't discuss you with people, Jerry. But I think your friends
do feel this about you, that this is the line of the least resistance
for you, that it may end in your destruction as an artist."

"I am perfectly competent to decide about my work without the advice of
my friends. I want ease, luxury, and beauty. I'm sick of grubbing in
this little studio. I'm going to get out of it, and soon, too. I've got
two orders from the Brendon portrait. Next year I'll raise my prices,
and after that we'll see."

Jane sighed, but made no answer.

After this talk, which irked him more than he cared to admit to himself,
he was much away. In the tender care of Mrs. Brendon and Althea he
sailed and soared into the most ethereal social circles. He tead, and
lunched, hither and thither, always on business, as he told Jane. He
even went to a dinner or so, to which she was not invited, "to try to
pull off an order."

If she resented his desertion, she never showed it by a glance. In fact,
she had dropped back into the silent, brooding Jane of the days before
he married her. He came and went with as li