s likenesses. And--and
he didn't flatter his models a great deal, either. I am very glad to
meet you, Mrs. Dupont."

Frances smiled, in her graceful way, and expressed her own pleasure.

"You--you also know Gordon, of course, since you posed for him, Mrs.
Dupont. I--I came here to speak with Mr. Cole about him."

"I can hardly offer you the hospitality of my room, Miss Van Rossum," I
told her. "It is a rather disorderly bachelor's den. If you will allow
me to lead you downstairs to the little parlor the landlady provides her
guests with, I shall be delighted to----"

"No, if you don't mind, I shall remain here for a moment. Mr. Cole, you
are Gordon's best friend; he used to say that you were the great
exception, a man one could always trust in everything. I hope Mrs.
Dupont will not mind, she--she is a woman and may be able to advise me.
I have legions of friends--we know thousands of people, but it doesn't
seem to me that there is another soul to whom I may come for--for a
little----"

She interrupted her words. I had pushed a chair forward for her and she
acknowledged the offer with a smile, but did not avail herself of it at
once, for she went to the bed where Baby Paul was, for a wonder, lying
awake and rolling his eyes about. On his face, however, there was
something that Frances and I considered a polite little grin.

"Is this the dear baby of the picture?" she asked. "He has grown such a
lot. What a dear lamb of a child it is! Oh! Mrs. Dupont, how proud and
happy a woman must be to be the mother of such a darling!"

Decidedly Miss Sophia was revealing herself in a very fine light. For
all of her riding astride after hounds, and her golfing and shooting and
tennis, she was a very real woman and her heart was in the right place.
Frances took up Baby Paul and sat down with him on her lap, where he
promptly went to sleep again.

"I remember how Gordon spoke of you, several times, Mrs. Dupont," said
Miss Van Rossum. "He said a queer thing, once, one of the strange little
sentences he always used to bring out. I was looking at your picture and
told him it represented a very beautiful woman, and he answered that
she was one of those ideals the other fellow always gets hold of.
But--but I don't see that there was anything very ideal about that
painting. It was just you."

For a moment Frances looked away. The phrase reminded her of an unhappy
circumstance, I have no doubt, but, to me, it represented cynicism
c