get away before luncheon. Where were you going just
now?"

"I thought I'd step over to the studio to see what sort of a shake-down
you've given me to repose on."

"I wish you would. Poor child, I do hope you will be comfortable. It's
perfectly horrid to send you out of the house----"

"Oh, I don't mind," he nodded, laughing, and she gave him a shy glance
of adieu and turned to receive another guest.

In his extemporized studio at Hurryon Lodge he found that old Miller had
already provided him with a washstand and accessories, a new tin tub and
a very comfortable iron bed.

The place was aromatic with the odour of paints, varnishes, turpentine,
and fixative; he opened the big window, let in air and sunshine, and
picked up a sheaf of brushes, soft and pliable from a fresh washing in
turpentine and black soap.

Confronting him on a big improvised easel was the full-length,
half-reclining portrait of Rosalie Dysart--a gay, fascinating, fly-away
thing after the deliberately artificial manner of the French court
painters who simpered and painted a hundred and fifty years ago. Ribbons
fluttered from the throat and shoulder of this demure, fair-skinned, and
blue-eyed creature, who was so palpably playing at masquerade. A silken
parody of a shepherdess--a laughing, dainty, snowy-fingered aristocrat,
sweet-lipped, provocative, half reclining under a purposely conventional
oak, between the branches of which big white clouds rolled in a
dark-blue sky--this was Rosalie as Duane had painted her with all the
perversely infernal skill of a brush always tipped with a mockery as
delicate as her small, bare foot, dropping below the flowered petticoat.

The unholy ease with which he had done it gave him a secret thrill of
admiration. It was apparently all surface--the exquisite masquerader,
the surrounding detail, the technical graciousness and flow of line and
contour, the effortless brush-work. Yet, with an ease which demanded
very respectful consideration, he had absorbed and transmitted the
frivolous spirit of the old French masters, which they themselves took
so seriously; the portrait was also a likeness, yet delightfully
permeated with the charm of a light-minded epoch; and somehow, behind
and underneath it all, a brilliant mockery sparkled--the half-amused,
half-indifferent brilliancy of the painter himself. It was there for any
who could appreciate it, and it was quite irresistible, particularly
since he had, after a dazzl