Calling one day and finding her alone in the drawing-room, Mr. Shanner, after some moments of unruffled demeanour and honeyed conversation, abruptly launched into a piteous outbreak.

"I tell you, Alice, you've made a fine mistake with that swell of yours," he exclaimed, his eyes flashing with resentment.

Alice stared at him in deep distress. Ever since the engagement Mr. Shanner had been all decorousness and deference. As he broke now through his ashen shell of propriety, his sedate person seemed to relapse, to stand limp, a trifle greyer, a trifle less well trimmed.

"Oh," she gasped at last, "you are under some misapprehension."

"Come, come, Alice," he said; "don't you suppose I've two eyes—and wide-open ones, too?"

"I don't really understand what you're alluding to, Mr. Shanner," she returned as coldly as she could find it in her.

"I am alluding to your engagement, of course," he insisted. His tone showed he was determined to force the subject on her. "What do you suppose the fellow is going to marry you for? Men of his class do not come out of their way to look for a wife amongst people of our class. You mustn't mind my not mincing words, but it's clear to me he doesn't care a fig about you, and that your money is the attraction. There, that's plain!"

Alice felt herself turn scarlet. Mr. Shanner suddenly stood revealed to her—of roughness and coarseness unendurable.

"I don't understand you," she exclaimed, feeling she was floundering, and with an acute sense of her lack of social skill to meet the contingency and cut short the interview.

"Oh, yes you do, Alice. Only you are too proud to say so."

"You are mistaken. My intended husband and I are on the best of terms. I am very much surprised to hear this from you."

"You mean that for a snubbing, no doubt. Well, I suppose I brought it on myself." He smiled uneasily and bit his lip. "Only I did think that, being so old a friend of the family, I had the right to give you a word of advice when the happiness of your life is at stake."

"Oh! please, Mr. Shanner—I'm very sorry," she breathed, all gasps and palpitations. "But really, truly, you're mistaken."

"I have used my eyes and head. I am not mistaken. Everything's all wrong, and you know it, Alice. I have been reading it in your face of late—I tell you you show it. Give up the swell before things go to the devil."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Shanner," she said, with all the kindness in her tone that she could muster, "but if you will get these extraordinary ideas into your head, I certainly am not going to fight them."

He smiled wanly, droopingly. "Another snubbing, I suppose. But you needn't take it in such ill part. I don't profess to belong to the aristocracy: I do profess to be a friend, one of the sort that's to be trusted. And I think you'll come to recognise that in the long run. Whatever happens, John Shanner's your friend, and when the time comes, you'll find him ready to hand. But I earnestly advise you not to delay. Throw up all this business before there's mischief."

Alice smiled bravely. "I repeat that Mr. Wyndham and myself are on the happiest of terms, though I am sure you mean your advice for the kindest."

She took up her stand behind this simple assertion, so that he could not beat down her refusal to be drawn into a deeper discussion. By degrees he pulled together his decorum, recovered his frigidity, and ultimately retired with the dignified utterance, "Well, I hope you are not going to be disillusionised, my child, but I have my doubts. At any rate, as I say, I stand by you in any case. Only promise me one thing, that if ever you find my warning was not mistaken, you will do me the justice to admit it."

She thanked him gravely, and assured him that she fully appreciated his kindness, and willingly made the promise. She was glad indeed of the chance of winding up the interview thus amicably. Yet, when he had gone, she felt panic-stricken at this revelation of how openly she had been wearing her heart—as if veritably on her sleeve. How fortunate her parents had observed nothing yet! But they, of course, were taking the perfection of everything so entirely for granted, and were so happy themselves over the beautiful romance which had transformed their household and their lives, that it was difficult for any suspicion to enter their heads. Certainly they had never read any expression in her face save that of rapture and contentment.

She must try to control herself. If only, like other women, she were more practised in assuming a surface self that won acceptance, that none could penetrate!

But Mr. Shanner was so absolutely in the right. Was it really worth while going on as at present? Could anything be more unhappy than all this uncertainty and perplexity? Something must be done. Things must come soon to a crisis. And then, one morning, some two or three days before the end of the month she received a letter from Wyndham, who had dined with them the evening before, announcing that he would be absent from the studio the whole day practically, as he had made club engagements for the entire afternoon and evening. As, too, he would be lunching out, it would not be worth her while to come to the studio at all on that day. He was sorry he had forgotten to mention all this when saying goodbye, but he was scribbling the note immediately on entry, and in a hurry to catch the post.

This letter gave Alice food for reflection. She did not attach any significance to the alleged club engagements; she had never grudged him the occasional evenings he spent in that way, since it kept him in touch with the art-world. But in this present instance there was certainly a suggestion of anxiety on his part that she should keep away from the studio over the day. "Ah—I understand!" she flashed, clenching her fingers; "Lady Lakeden's portrait is to be brought there to-day, and he does not wish me to see it! She is beautiful—beautiful!—he fears her beauty will sting me to jealousy."

He had never wished her to see the portrait! Had he not always turned the conversation whenever she had mentioned it? And only last night, as if in anticipation of so natural a desire on her part, he had had to confess that it was finished, but had added that it was going straight to Paris, as he preferred to feel it was safe there in the hands of his agent. He had thus led her to conclude that the picture would not be passing through the studio at all; but, with his letter now before her, she felt certain that his aim was to get the portrait framed, to touch it up, and then send it off without showing it to her.

But she had the right to see it, if she so desired, she told herself bitterly. If the Salon accepted it, nothing could prevent her going to Paris with her mother; though so enterprising an adventure was quite outside the habits of their life—a consideration on which he was counting, perhaps. But the Salon might not accept it, and in any case two or three months might elapse before such a possible visit, and in that time who could say how things might turn?

Entrance to the studio was a privilege that had been freely bestowed upon her. He had not forbidden her to come; he had merely tried to stop her by suggestion and diplomacy. But she would not be denied.

She would meet strategy with strategy: she would take care to arrive late in the evening, so as to be alone there. In the afternoon, or earlier in the evening, there was the danger of just catching him between his engagements, since he would no doubt come home to change. She would see the portrait at her leisure; she would at last study the features of the woman—the beautiful, brilliant woman—who had unwittingly robbed her.

"And I have no beauty," she sobbed; "I am plain and insignificant. I have no cleverness, no experience; not one little weapon to fight with, to win him back to me!"