Meanwhile the sittings were progressing in a manner to gratify the artist beyond his hopes. Miss Robinson seemed to find some mysterious inspiration in this decorative scheme, seemed to fuse into it, to lend herself to design and draughtmanship. Her face, too, took on subtler phases, was touched to a measure of nobility! Her dark eyes shone softly under their long lashes; her expression was full of goodness and charity. Wyndham prided himself that he had put on the canvas something remote from the lines of ordinary portraiture—a simple soul, a gentle Lady Bountiful, yet not less dignified in her way than the heroines of the grand portraiture.

Mrs. Robinson did not insist on uninterrupted chaperonage of her daughter; the ladies evinced little fanaticism on this head. Often they brought knitting or needle-work with them, which occupied the mother in a peaceful, old-fashioned way that Wyndham even found himself admiring. Sometimes Mrs. Robinson would appear only towards the end of the sitting, and sometimes she considerately announced that Alice would have to come alone for the next occasion as she herself was otherwise busy. They both showed a tact and a good taste in the matter which he fully recognised, and for which in a way he was grateful.

In the natural resulting intimacy between artist and sitter, Miss Robinson expanded, opened out her mind; at first timidly and tentatively, ultimately with freedom and confidence. She confessed that her experience of life had been nothing at all, since she had always lived in quiet shelter. Her unsophisticated simplicity was certainly engaging; he could see that she was a sheet entirely unwritten upon, that her soul was as naÏve and trusting as her outward being. She was refreshingly a child of nature—no bewildering complexity here—no shadow of affectation. She spoke without reserve of the poverty of her childhood, and admitted that she had disagreeable qualms of conscience about their present riches. Was it right to enjoy so much when one thought of the state of the world generally? They debated the subject endlessly; considering it elaborately from every conceivable standpoint: and his personal authority went far to allay her disquietude. His theories, backed up by high philosophy and poetry, fascinated her with their harmony and originality; he had such a charming way of arranging the order of things into a beautiful artist's scheme, whilst yet his sympathies were deep, true, and universal!

Sometimes he was conscious of his sophistry, and felt ashamed of it afterwards. Was he playing a comedy of sentiment? he asked himself. Well, why not? Men and women made a careful toilette for an evening party: why not a spiritual toilette for their sentimental relations?

The last words of his own thought, startled him. Then it was a sentimental relation. "By Jove, I must be careful!" he murmured to himself. "She's an awfully good soul, and it isn't fair to either of us." But the next moment he shrugged his shoulders. Why trouble his mind at all? Every relation between a man and a woman who came into such close personal touch was in a way sentimental—for the time being! That was only the game of life, and everybody had to play at it: the main thing was to bow to the rules. Such temporary relations might well be made as pleasant as possible; but, when they were at an end, it was incumbent on both parties to realise that.

Yet he could not help being increasingly conscious of his power over her; it was so pathetically visible. Their conversations were often amusingly like those of kindly tutor and obedient, inquiring child; she hanging on his words in entire self-surrender, as he discoursed so graciously and brought his points so lightly and simply within the range of her comprehension. Sometimes, in following up an explanation, he would be carried away by the flow of his own ideas and his personal interest in the matter, and then he would almost seem to be addressing an equal in knowledge and experience. But whenever that happened; whenever, for example, he had let himself go too far into the subtle mysteries of technique, he would find himself regretting the unchecked surrender to impulse, and remain strangely vexed about it long afterwards. It was really soaring right outside her limitations! She was not a Lady Betty!

Lady Betty was so often in his mind now: she seemed to have established herself more definitely there than ever before, as if to keep him up to the proper pitch in his judgments of women. He bowed his head low to Lady Betty, recognised her as his full intellectual equal—in some aspects his superior. She was brains and beauty. She was stateliness itself. She was sunshine and sweetness. What was Miss Robinson by the side of her? And as he asked himself the question, an impression of Miss Robinson, as he had recently come upon her suddenly in the streets, blotted out the more dignified version on his own canvas. How plain and homely she had seemed in her unobtrusive walking-costume; how insignificant her whole meek bearing! Yes, that was the true Miss Robinson; caught photographically in the act of being herself, and fixed by his vision for always—extinguishing the gorgeously-dressed person of these incessant festal evenings no less than his own artistic edition of her.

In no respect could she claim to come up to his measure. He appreciated all her virtues, recognised her exceptional womanhood: by the side of Lady Betty she was insipid, bourgeoise, monotonously amiable.

Yet he could never arrive at so harsh a verdict without relenting at a rebound. "It is curious," was his thought, "that in proportion as I get more friendly with her and really like her, I yet get harder and harder on her, poor child! She's a jolly good sort! What a decent world it would be if only there were ever so many more women like her!"

And, by way of atonement, his manner at their next meeting would warm and soften sensibly; and it came upon him always with a degree of surprise that, however he might feel about Miss Robinson theoretically, her actual society was always pleasant and comrade-like.

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