I never
saw anything so clever. You show us not only what we all saw but what we
all passed over though it was there to see. There is an absurd likeness,
and you've blazoned it."
Robin stole a glance at his companion. Ashley Greaves said, in a thin
voice that did not accord with his physique:
"My idea was to indicate the strong link there is between the English
woman and the American woman. If I may say so, these two portraits, as it
were, personify the two countries, and--er--and--er--"
His mind appeared to give way. He strove to continue, to say something
memorable, conscious of his conspicuous and central position. But his
intellect, possibly over-heated and suffering from lack of air, declined
to back him up, and left him murmuring rather hopelessly:
"The one nation--er--and the other--yes--the give and take--the give and
take. You see my meaning? Yes, yes."
Miss Schley said nothing. She looked at Lady Holme's portrait and at hers
with serenity, and seemed quite unconscious of the many eyes fastened
upon her.
"You feel the strong link, I hope, Pimpernel?" said Mrs. Wolfstein, with
her most violent foreign accent. "Hands across the Herring Pond!"
"Mr. Greaves has been too cute for words," she replied. "I wish Lady
Holme could cast her eye on them."
She looked up at nothing, with a sudden air of seeing something
interesting that was happening along way off.
"Philadelphia!" murmured Mrs.
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