e same time scornful of it. It seemed to contain not a few
ancient shams and hollow pretenders--

Ah! once more the soft, ingratiating voice beside him. Madame de
Pastourelles was expressing a flattering wish to see his picture, of
which her father had talked so much.

'And he says you have found such a beautiful model--or, rather, better
than beautiful--characteristic.'

Fenwick stared at her. It was on the tip of his tongue to say 'She
is my wife.' But he did not say it. He imagined her look of
surprise--'Ah, my father had no idea!'--imagined it with a morbid
intensity, and saw no way of confronting or getting round it; not
at the dinner-table, anyway--with all these eyes and ears about
him--above all, with Lord Findon opposite. Why, they might think he
had been ashamed of Phoebe!--that there was some reason for hiding her
away. It was ridiculous--most annoying and absurd; but now that
the thing had happened, he must really choose his own moment for
unravelling the coil.

So he stammered something unintelligible about a 'Westmoreland type,'
and then hastily led the talk to some other schemes he had in mind.
With the sense of having escaped a danger he found his tongue for the
first time, and the power of expressing himself.

Madame de Pastourelles listened attentively--drew him out,
indeed--made him show himself to the best advantage. And presently, at
a moment of pause, she said, with a smile and a shrug, 'How happy you
are to have an art! Now I--'

She let her hand fall with a little plaintive movement.

'I am sure you paint,' said Fenwick, eagerly.

'No.'

'Then you are musical?'

'Not at all. I embroider--'

'All women should,' said Fenwick, trying for a free and careless air.

'I read--'

'You do not need to say it.'

She opened her eyes at this readiness of reply; but still pursued:

'And I have a Chinese pug.'

'And no children?' The words rose to Fenwick's lips, but remained
unspoken. Perhaps she divined them, for she began hastily to describe
her dog--its tricks and fidelities. Fenwick could meet her here; for
a mongrel fox-terrier--taken, a starving waif, out of the streets--had
been his companion since almost the first month of his solitude. Each
stimulated the other, and they fell into those legends of dog-life in
which every dog-lover believes, however sceptical he may be in other
directions. Till presently she said, with a sigh and a stiffening of
her delicate features:

'But mine