would be absent from the studio the
whole day practically, as he had made club engagements for the entire
afternoon and evening. As, too, he would be lunching out, it would not
be worth her while to come to the studio at all on that day. He was
sorry he had forgotten to mention all this when saying goodbye, but he
was scribbling the note immediately on entry, and in a hurry to catch
the post.

This letter gave Alice food for reflection. She did not attach any
significance to the alleged club engagements; she had never grudged him
the occasional evenings he spent in that way, since it kept him in touch
with the art-world. But in this present instance there was certainly a
suggestion of anxiety on his part that she should keep away from the
studio over the day. "Ah--I understand!" she flashed, clenching her
fingers; "Lady Lakeden's portrait is to be brought there to-day, and he
does not wish me to see it! She is beautiful--beautiful!--he fears her
beauty will sting me to jealousy."

He had never wished her to see the portrait! Had he not always turned
the conversation whenever she had mentioned it? And only last night, as
if in anticipation of so natural a desire on her part, he had had to
confess that it was finished, but had added that it was going straight
to Paris, as he preferred to feel it was safe there in the hands of his
agent. He had thus led her to conclude that the picture would not be
passing through the studio at all; but, with his letter now before her,
she felt certain that his aim was to get the portrait framed, to touch
it up, and then send it off without showing it to her.

But she had the right to see it, if she so desired, she told herself
bitterly. If the Salon accepted it, nothing could prevent her going to
Paris with her mother; though so enterprising an adventure was quite
outside the habits of their life--a consideration on which he was
counting, perhaps. But the Salon might not accept it, and in any case
two or three months might elapse before such a possible visit, and in
that time who could say how things might turn?

Entrance to the studio was a privilege that had been freely bestowed
upon her. He had not forbidden her to come; he had merely tried to stop
her by suggestion and diplomacy. But she would not be denied.

She would meet strategy with strategy: she would take care to arrive
late in the evening, so as to be alone there. In the afternoon, or
earlier in the evening, there was the