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CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE PORTRAIT.

PAUL was ushered into a room on the ground-floor of the house in Park Lane.

A gentleman sat near the fire at a small table covered with newspapers and reviews, but the room itself attracted Mr. Whitmore's notice before he so much as glanced towards its occupant.

It was large enough for a library, but there was a lack of books and bookshelves; there were cabinets filled with old china and other quaint rarities, a few good oil pictures on the walls, but the decoration of the room itself was more attractive than its contents the walls were divided into large square panels, the dull red ground of these relieved at wide intervals by gold stars, the panel mouldings of satin-wood and ebony; the wainscoting was of pure ebony, and the mouldings at top and bottom of satin-wood. ceiling was covered with arabesques in blue and red, relieved by gold bosses.

The

It was too full of colour and splendour to be quite in good taste. But Paul had not time to take in the details of this magnificence; he merely guessed that the proprietor of such a mansion must be very wealthy, and that he was probably fond of art.

There was a complacent, well-kept air about Mr. Downes, which gave the notion of acquired wealth; his clothes, his very hair and whiskers, had the look of being newly put on.

"Good morning, Mr. Whitmore"-he bowed, but not as to an equal; "you painted a portrait for my cousin, Mrs. Winchester, which I am much pleased with; Mrs. Winchester recommended you to me, in fact. You are a portrait painter, I conclude ?"

"No" (a smile began to curve Paul's mouth), "I am not a portrait painter; I painted Mrs. Winchester to please a friend of mine."

Mr. Downes looked slightly discomposed.

"Ah! but you will have no objection to paint Mrs. Downes, I suppose ?"

"I object to paint a mere portrait, but I shall be glad to make a picture of Mrs. Downes so long as I do it my own way."

"Dear me, what a very foolish person -he does not know how to get on in his profession at all." Aloud Mr. Downes said: "Ah, indeed, I leave you to settle that part of the business with Mrs. Downes; I fancy no one can help making a picture of her."

Mr. Downes went to the bell and rang it.

"She's a beauty, I suppose," Paul thought; "or her husband thinks she is."

"When will it suit you to have the first sitting, Mr. Whitmore? Mrs. Downes will prefer being painted at home."

"Yes," said Paul," that will suit me best." Since his marriage he had avoided receiving sitters at the studio in St. John Street. "This day week about this time I could not begin sooner."

Mr. Downes sent up a message to his wife, and while he waited for the answer he graciously condescended to show Paul his pictures.

Here he admitted equality; and Paul's manner softened as he grew interested, for some of the pictures were remarkable; but still his first impression of Mr. Downes remained, and when he went away that gentleman repeated to himself

"Very foolish, conceited person that; I shall not tell Elinor how abrupt he is, or she may change her mind about the portrait. She was unwilling enough at

first to let him do it, but I must have it: I never saw a picture that I liked so much as that likeness of Henrietta. He's clever; but what high-flown nonsense these artists talk! They should be thankful to get a commission instead of laying down the law how it shall be executed. Lucky for Mr. Whitmore that I saw his likeness of Henrietta before I saw him."

Mr. Downes was very much in love with his wife, and he considered the artist a fortunate fellow indeed who was honoured by a commission to paint her loveliness.

He went up to her sitting-room to ask her if she were quite sure that the day he had fixed suited her. But when he opened the outer door there was a sound of angry voices; he drew back and shut it again.

"Poor dear Elinor, I never heard her speak so loud before. I feel sure that Miss Coppock is tiresome; really Elinor's championship of that woman is most surprising; I can't bear the sight of her, she is so ugly. I believe all ugly females should be destroyed when children we might copy the Greeks in this respect with advantage."

When Mr. Downes reached his writing-room again, he looked round it with complacency.

Patience, that you are to forget all I do not wish remembered. Mr. Whitmore will paint my portrait quite as well as any other artist, I suppose; and if my husband chooses him, I really cannot refuse to employ him."

Mrs. Downes, as she spoke, stood looking at herself in a tall narrow mirror between the windows of her room. It was difficult to feel angry before such a lovely picture; her long trailing black velvet robe gave her height, and suited perfectly with the calm dignity with which she reproved Miss Coppock; the only betrayal of anger had been in the raised tone of voice.

Miss Coppock was seated by the fireside, warming her feet; she had regained herold paleness, but all evenness of skin had left her face, and her eyes had lost their fire; her dress was ill chosen-a ruby silk with elaborate trimmings and frillings; its want of repose added to her gaunt, haggard appearance.

At Mrs. Downes's last words a slight flush came into Patience's face.

"Oh, Patty, how can you! Why ar'n't you honest? You know you want Mr. Whitmore to see your grandeur."

"Miss Coppock," Mrs. Downes turned her head, so as to get a distinct view of her face in a new position,-"I wish you would try to remember my name; pet names are well enough for children, but I have left off being a child."

Mr. Downes went back to his newspaper with the comfortable reflection that, at any rate, his hands had never been soiled by making money.

His wife's words, if he had heard them, would have troubled him more than their loudness of tone did.

"I thought it was quite understood,

"You never were a child :"-this was muttered between Patience's set teeth; she made a struggling effort to compose herself before she answered.

of Patty's lovely lips gave a hint that she too had been mastering some impatience; "but at your age, you can't know men as well as I do, and I'm sure it's neither fair to your husband nor to Miss Beaufort-I mean Mr. Whitmore's wife-for you to give him these sittings."

"You said something of this kind once before, Miss Coppock, and I told

you then that you mistook your office. One would think "-Patty broke out into a laugh, which brought back all the old winning look into her face"you'd been born in Spain, where, I believe, women always have a female gaoler; but as I'm not likely to forget my position or what I owe to it, you needn't play duenna, or whatever it is, here. Now don't be cross; if you didn't run away so pertinaciously as you do from Mr. Downes, I should say you were in love with him; you are always taking his part."

It was happy for Patience that Patty's mind was bent on deciding which was the best side of her own face; and she did not look round at her companion. The blood rushed up to Miss Coppock's forehead, the dull eyes lightened for a moment with an expression that was very like hatred for the bright, beautiful creature sunning herself in the glow of her own reflected loveliness, actually feasting on the picture made by her flower-like skin and blue eyes and fair gleaming hair. A casual looker-on might have thought Mrs. Downes had a dangerous companion, and that in all probability this ugly, ill-tempered woman would work her a mischief: but if the looker-on had waited, this idea would have fled. Every movement of Mrs. Downes was soft and easy, in keeping with the exquisite repose of her beauty, but there was nothing undecided about her.

She walked across the room to the sofa with a firm step, and seated herself in an attitude full of grace and yet full of self-possession. But with Patience, the spasm of jealous fury faded into a sad, downcast look, and a quivering of the pale lips that told of indecision, even in her dislike. She muttered something about orders to give, and went out of the room.

Patty's face clouded over at once. "One always has to pay a price for rising in life, I suppose, and so I have to swallow that woman's insolence. How dare she venture to say such a thing? If I hadn't been quite sure before, I'm determined to see Paul now." She sat thinking; the cloud faded, and a

thoughtful look came into her deep blue eyes-a look Patty never wore for the observation of others, and yet one which since her marriage had been her habitual expression when alone ; it was so different to her playful, child-like sweetness that it would have puzzled Mr. Downes; it seemed to make her a full-grown woman at once.

"What did I marry for?" she said at last; "certainly not for the mere sake of Maurice," a fretful droop here of the full scarlet under-lip. "I mean to fulfil all that my position requires, of course; in De Mirancourt's last letter she says, 'Be sure to keep well with your husband, it makes a woman so looked up to;' but I might as well have done without education or refinement, if I am to keep to the commonplace all for love' idea: nobody does, I'm sure; it's a mere sham only found in books: if I'd believed in it, of course I'd have waited, and then what would have happened? First, as an unmarried woman not knowing anybody, I shouldn't have got into society at all, or at least only on the footing of an adventuress, and then directly my money got known about, I should have been a prey to all kinds of imposition. No, a husband is a shield and an introduction, and those were just the two things I wanted, and Maurice is very indulgent, and has a good deal of savoir faire. Of course I must have 'admirers,-I could not escape them if I tried," she smiled; "and why not Paul among the others? I owe him something for having forgotten me so soon-that is, if he did forget me. I can't believe he really fell in love with that pale-faced, half-asleep girl; it was pique, I know it was; by this time he is less romantic and unlike other people, and he'll be able quite to understand that he can admire me, though he is married, without any harm done. I suppose he reads French novels as other men do. Poor Patience, I ought to make some excuse for her; it's her vulgar bringing-up that gives her these notions as if any possible harm could come to me from the admiration of any man, married or single. De Mirancourt