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Armstrong Dale walked up and down his grim-looking, soot-smudged studio, as if he had determined to wear a track on one side similar to that made by a wild beast in his cage. “I won’t go again,” he said; “it’s a kind of madness. Heavens! how beautiful she is! And that man—that wretched, effete, miserable little piece of conceit, with his insolent criticisms of my work. I felt as if I could strangle him. If it had not been for her appealing looks, I should have had a row with him before now. I will not put up with it. But how she seems to hate him; how she—” “Bah! Brute! Idiot! Ass! Conceited fool! Because nature has given you a decent face, can’t a handsome woman look at you without your thinking she admires you—can’t she speak gently, and in her graceful refined way, without your thinking that she is in love with you?” “It’s all right, Cornel, my darling! I’ve been a fool—a conceited fool; but I’ve got your sweet, innocent little face always before me, the remembrance of your dear arms about my neck, and your kisses—armour, all of them, to guard me against folly. Pish! Fancy and conceit! I will go, finish my painting, get it exhibited if I can, and pile up Philistine gold as spoil to bear home to her who is to be my very own.” It was the third time of making this declaration, and, full of his self-confidence, Dale made his way for the fourth time to Portland Place, to find his pulses, which had been accelerating their rate, calm down at once, for his reception by the Contessa was perfect, but there was a mingling of annoyance with his satisfaction on finding that his hostess was not alone. Lady Grayson, one of Valentina’s greatest intimates, was there, a handsome, arch-looking woman, widow of a wealthy old general, who, after a long life of warfare in the East, had commenced another in the West, but this was not even of seven years’ duration before he fell. Lady Grayson smiled sweetly upon the artist as he entered; and he felt that there was as much meaning in her words as in her looks. “I forgot this was your sitting day, Tina. Do you know, I thought ladies always had to go to an artist’s studio to be painted. There, I suppose you two want to be alone?”