getting glum. Cheer up, my dear fellow; I daresay you'll be invited to
some of the sittings--that's for Miss Spragg to say.--Ah, here comes
your neighbour back, confound him--You'll let me know when we can
begin?"

As Popple moved away Undine turned eagerly to Marvell. "Do you suppose
there's time? I'd love to have him to do me!"

Ralph smiled. "My poor child--he WOULD 'do' you, with a vengeance.
Infernal cheek, his asking you to sit--"

She stared. "But why? He's painted your cousin, and all the smart
women."

"Oh, if a 'smart' portrait's all you want!"

"I want what the others want," she answered, frowning and pouting a
little. She was already beginning to resent in Ralph the slightest sign
of resistance to her pleasure; and her resentment took the form--a
familiar one in Apex courtships--of turning on him, in the next
entr'acte, a deliberately averted shoulder. The result of this was to
bring her, for the first time, in more direct relation to her other
neighbour. As she turned he turned too, showing her, above a shining
shirt-front fastened with a large imitation pearl, a ruddy plump snub
face without an angle in it, which yet looked sharper than a razor.
Undine's eyes met his with a startled look, and for a long moment they
remained suspended on each other's stare.

Undine at length shrank back with an unrecognizing face; but her
movement made her opera-glass slip to the floor, and her neighbour bent