Wolfstein, with an undercurrent of
laughter.
It was very like Lady Holme's look when she was singing. Robin Pierce saw
it and pressed his lips together. At this moment the crowd shifted and
left a gap through which Lady Holme immediately glided towards Ashley
Greaves. He saw her and came forward to meet her with eagerness, holding
out his hand, and smiling mechanically with even more than his usual
intention.
"What a success!" she said.
"If it is, your portrait makes it so."
"And where is my portrait?"
Robin Pierce nipped in the bud a rather cynical smile. The painter wiped
his forehead with a white silk handkerchief.
"Can't you guess? Look where the crowd is thickest."
The people had again closed densely round the two pictures.
"You are an artist in more ways than one, I'm afraid," said Lady Holme.
"Don't turn my head more than the heat has."
The searching expression, that indicated the strong desire to say
something memorable, once more contorted the painter's face.
"He who would essay to fix beauty on canvas," he began, in a rather
piercing voice, "should combine two gifts."
He paused and lifted his upper lip two or three times, employing his
under-jaw as a lever.
"Yes?" said Lady Holme, encouragingly.
"The gift of the brush which perpetuates and the gift of--er--gift of
the--"
His intellect once more retreated from him into some distant place and
left him murmuring:
"Beauty demands all, beauty demands all.
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