suited Francie, but she was nevertheless struck by Delia's
rigour. "I'm only going to take him to see Mr. Waterlow."

"Has he become all of a sudden too shy to go alone?"

"Well, you know Mr. Waterlow has a prejudice against him and has made
him feel it. You know Gaston told us so."

"He told us HE couldn't bear him; that's what he told us," said Delia.

"All the more reason I should be kind to him. Why Delia, do realise,"
Francie went on.

"That's just what I do," returned the elder girl; "but things that are
very different from those you want me to. You have queer reasons."

"I've others too that you may like better. He wants to put a piece in
the paper about it."

"About your picture?"

"Yes, and about me. All about the whole thing."

Delia stared a moment. "Well, I hope it will be a good one!" she said
with a groan of oppression as from the crushing majesty of their fate.

X

When Francie, two days later, passed with Mr. Flack into Charles
Waterlow's studio she found Mme. de Cliche before the great canvas. She
enjoyed every positive sign that the Proberts took an interest in her,
and this was a considerable symptom, Gaston's second sister's coming all
that way--she lived over by the Invalides--to look at the portrait once
more. Francie knew she had seen it at an earlier stage; the work had
excited curiosity and discussion among the Proberts from the first of
their making her acquaintance, when they went into considerations about
it which had not occurred to the original and her companions--frequently
as, to our knowledge, these good people had conversed on the subject.
Gaston had told her that opinions differed much in the family as to the
merit of the work, and that Margaret, precisely, had gone so far as to
say that it might be a masterpiece of tone but didn't make her look like
a lady. His father on the other hand had no objection to offer to the
character in which it represented her, but he didn't think it well
painted. "Regardez-moi ca, et ca, et ca, je vous demande!" he had
exclaimed, making little dashes at the canvas with his glove, toward
mystifying spots, on occasions when the artist was not at hand. The
Proberts always fell into French when they spoke on a question of
art. "Poor dear papa, he only understands le vieux jeu!" Gaston had
explained, and he had still further to expound what he meant by the old
game. The brand-newness of Charles Waterlow's game had already been a
bewildermen