Mr Twemlow, I implore you to save that
child!'

'That child?'

'Georgiana. She will be sacrificed. She will be inveigled and married
to that connexion of yours. It is a partnership affair, a
money-speculation. She has no strength of will or character to help
herself and she is on the brink of being sold into wretchedness for
life.'

'Amazing! But what can I do to prevent it?' demands Twemlow, shocked and
bewildered to the last degree.

'Here is another portrait. And not good, is it?'

Aghast at the light manner of her throwing her head back to look at it
critically, Twemlow still dimly perceives the expediency of throwing his
own head back, and does so. Though he no more sees the portrait than if
it were in China.

'Decidedly not good,' says Mrs Lammle. 'Stiff and exaggerated!'

'And ex--' But Twemlow, in his demolished state, cannot command the
word, and trails off into '--actly so.'

'Mr Twemlow, your word will have weight with her pompous, self-blinded
father. You know how much he makes of your family. Lose no time. Warn
him.'

'But warn him against whom?'

'Against me.'

By great good fortune Twemlow receives a stimulant at this critical
instant. The stimulant is Lammle's voice.

'Sophronia, my dear, what portraits are you showing Twemlow?'

'Public characters, Alfred.'

'Show him the last of me.'

'Yes, Alfred.'

She puts the book down, takes another book up, turns the leaves, and
presents the portrait to Twemlow.

'That is the last of Mr Lammle. Do you think it good?--Warn her father
against me. I deserve it, for I have been in the scheme from the first.
It is my husband's scheme, your connexion's, and mine. I tell you this,
only to show you the necessity of the poor little foolish affectionate
creature's being befriended and rescued. You will not repeat this to her
father. You will spare me so far, and spare my husband. For, though this
celebration of to-day is all a mockery, he is my husband, and we must
live.--Do you think it like?'

Twemlow, in a stunned condition, feigns to compare the portrait in his
hand with the original looking towards him from his Mephistophelean
corner.

'Very well indeed!' are at length the words which Twemlow with great
difficulty extracts from himself.

'I am glad you think so. On the whole, I myself consider it the best.
The others are so dark. Now here, for instance, is another of Mr
Lammle--'

'But I don't understand; I don't see my way,' Twemlow st