her straightway as a reinforcement. Kate
herself had spoken, however, before he had had time to tell her so.

_"You_ had noticed too?"--she smiled at him without looking at Milly.
"Then I'm not original--which one always hopes one has been. But the
likeness is so great." And now she looked at Milly--for whom again it
was, all round indeed, kind, kind eyes. "Yes, there you are, my dear,
if you want to know. And you're superb." She took now but a glance at
the picture, though it was enough to make her question to her friends
not too straight. "Isn't she superb?"

"I brought Miss Theale," Lord Mark explained to the latter, "quite off
my own bat."

"I wanted Lady Aldershaw," Kate continued to Milly, "to see for
herself."

_"Les grands esprits se rencontrent!"_ laughed her attendant gentleman,
a high, but slightly stooping, shambling and wavering person, who
represented urbanity by the liberal aid of certain prominent front
teeth and whom Milly vaguely took for some sort of great man.

Lady Aldershaw meanwhile looked at Milly quite as if Milly had been the
Bronzino and the Bronzino only Milly. "Superb, superb. Of course I had
noticed you. It is wonderful," she went on with her back to the
picture, but with some other eagerness which Milly felt gathering,
directing her motions now. It was enough--they were introduced, and she
was saying "I wonder if you could give us the pleasure of coming----"
She was not fresh, for she was not young, even though she denied at
every pore that she was old; but she was vivid and much bejewelled for
the midsummer daylight; and she was all in the palest pinks and blues.
She didn't think, at this pass, that she could "come" anywhere--Milly
didn't; and she already knew that somehow Lord Mark was saving her from
the question. He had interposed, taking the words out of the lady's
mouth and not caring at all if the lady minded. That was clearly the
right way to treat her--at least for him; as she had only dropped,
smiling, and then turned away with him. She had been dealt with--it
would have done an enemy good. The gentleman still stood, a little
helpless, addressing himself to the intention of urbanity as if it were
a large loud whistle; he had been signing sympathy, in his way, while
the lady made her overture; and Milly had, in this light, soon arrived
at their identity. They were Lord and Lady Aldershaw, and the wife was
the clever one. A minute or two later the situation had changed, and