household, her pride fought against her pride, and her woman's sense
of ownership in the man whom she had married wrestled with the acquired
sentiments of freedom, liberality, equality, good taste. With her spirit
thus confused, and her mind so at variance with itself, she was really
acting on the simple instinct of compassion.

She had run upstairs from Mr. Stone's room, and now walked fast, lest
that instinct, the most physical, perhaps, of all--awakened by sights
and sounds, and requiring constant nourishment--should lose its force.

Rapidly, then, she made her way to the grey street in Bayswater where
Cecilia had told her that the girl now lived.

The tall, gaunt landlady admitted her.

"Have you a Miss Barton lodging here?" Bianca asked.

"Yes," said the landlady, "but I think she's out."

She looked into the little model's room.

"Yes," she said; "she's out; but if you'd like to leave a note you
could write in here. If you're looking for a model, she wants work, I
believe."

That modern faculty of pressing on an aching nerve was assuredly not
lacking to Bianca. To enter the girl's room was jabbing at the nerve
indeed.

She looked round her. The mental vacuity of that little room! There