The Portrait

by Edith Wharton

　　"Nothing on earth would induce me to sit to him!"

　　There was a chorus of interrogations.

　　"Oh, because--he makes people look so horrid; the way one looks on boardship, or early in the morning, or when one's hair is out of curl and oneknows it. I'd so much rather be done by Mr. Cumberton!"

　　Little Cumberton, the fashionable purveyor of rose-water pastels, strokedhis moustache to hide a conscious smile.

　　"Lillo is a genius--that we must all admit," he said indulgently, asthough condoning a friend's weakness; "but he has an unfortunatetemperament. He has been denied the gift--so precious to an artist--ofperceiving the ideal. He sees only the defects of his sitters; one mightalmost fancy that he takes a morbid pleasure in exaggerating their weakpoints, in painting them on their worst days; but I honestly believe hecan't help himself. His peculiar limitations prevent his seeing anythingbut the most prosaic side of human nature--

　　"'A primrose by the river's brim

　　A yellow primrose is to him,

　　And it is nothing more.'"

　　Cumberton looked round to surprise an order in the eye of the lady whosesentiments he had so deftly interpreted, but poetry always made heruncomfortable, and her nomadic attention had strayed to other topics. Hisglance was tripped up by Mrs. Mellish.

　　"Limitations? But, my dear man, it's because he hasn't any limitations,because he doesn't wear the portrait-painter's conventional blinders, thatwe're all so afraid of being painted by him. It's not because he sees onlyone aspect of his sitters, it's because he selects the real, the typicalone, as instinctively as a detective collars a pick-pocket in a crowd. Ifthere's nothing to paint--no real person--he paints nothing; look at thesumptuous emptiness of his portrait of Mrs. Guy Awdrey"--("Why," thepretty woman perplexedly interjected, "that's the only nice picture heever did!") "If there's one positive trait in a negative whole he bringsit out in spite of himself; if it isn't a nice trait, so much the worsefor the sitter; it isn't Lillo's fault: he's no more to blame than amirror. Your other painters do the surface--he does the depths; they paintthe ripples on the pond, he drags the bottom. He makes flesh seem asfortuitous as clothes. When I look at his portraits of fine ladies inpearls and velvet I seem to see a little naked cowering wisp of a soulsitting beside the big splendid body, like a poor relation in the darkestcorner of an opera-box. But look at his pictures of really great people--how great they are! There's plenty of ideal there. Take his ProfessorClyde; how clearly the man's history is written in those broad steadystrokes of the brush: the hard work, the endless patience, the fearlessimagination of the great savant! Or the picture of Mr. Domfrey--the manwho has felt beauty without having the power to create it. The very brush-work expresses the difference between the two; the crowding of nervoustentative lines, the subtler gradations of color, somehow convey asuggestion of dilettantism. You feel what a delicate instrument the manis, how every sense has been tuned to the finest responsiveness." Mrs.Mellish paused, blushing a little at the echo of her own eloquence. "Myadvice is, don't let George Lillo paint you if you don't want to be foundout--or to find yourself out. That's why I've never let him do me; I'mwaiting for the day of judgment," she ended with a laugh.

　　Every one but the pretty woman, whose eyes betrayed a quivering impatienceto discuss clothes, had listened attentively to Mrs. Mellish. Lillo'spresence in New York--he had come over from Paris for the first time intwelve years, to arrange the exhibition of his pictures--gave to theanalysis of his methods as personal a flavor as though one had beenfurtively dissecting his domestic relations. The analogy, indeed, is notunapt; for in Lillo's curiously detached existence it is difficult tofigure any closer tie than that which unites him to his pictures. In thislight, Mrs. Mellish's flushed harangue seemed not unfitted to thetrivialities of the tea hour, and some one almost at once carried on theargument by saying:--"But according to your theory--that the significanceof his work depends on the significance of the sitter--his portrait ofVard ought to be a master-piece; and it's his biggest failure."

　　Alonzo Vard's suicide--he killed himself, strangely enough, the day thatLillo's pictures were first shown--had made his portrait the chief featureof the exhibition. It had been painted ten or twelve years earlier, whenthe terrible "Boss" was at the height of his power; and if ever manpresented a type to stimulate such insight as Lillo's, that man was Vard;yet the portrait was a failure. It was magnificently composed; thetechnique was dazzling; but the face had been--well, expurgated. It wasVard as Cumberton might have painted him--a common man trying to look atease in a good coat. The picture had never before been exhibited, andthere was a general outcry of disappointment. It wasn't only the criticsand the artists who grumbled. Even the big public, which had gaped andshuddered at Vard, revelling in his genial villany, and enjoying in hisdeath that succumbing to divine wrath which, as a spectacle, is next bestto its successful defiance--even the public felt itself defrauded. Whathad the painter done with their hero? Where was the big sneeringdomineering face that figured so convincingly in political cartoons andpatent-medicine advertisements, on cigar-boxes and electioneering posters?They had admired the man for looking his part so boldly; for showing theundisguised blackguard in every line of his coarse body and cruel face;the pseudo-gentleman of Lillo's picture was a poor thing compared to thereal Vard. It had been vaguely expected that the great boss's portraitwould have the zest of an incriminating document, the scandalousattraction of secret memoirs; and instead, it was as insipid as anobituary. It was as though the artist had been in league with his sitter,had pledged himself to oppose to the lust for post-mortem "revelations" animpassable blank wall of negation. The public was resentful, the criticswere aggrieved. Even Mrs. Mellish had to lay down her arms.

　　"Yes, the portrait of Vard is a failure," she admitted, "and I've neverknown why. If he'd been an obscure elusive type of villain, one couldunderstand Lillo's missing the mark for once; but with that face from thepit--!"

　　She turned at the announcement of a name which our discussion had drowned,and found herself shaking hands with Lillo.

　　The pretty woman started and put her hands to her curls; Cumberton droppeda condescending eyelid (he never classed himself by recognizing degrees inthe profession), and Mrs. Mellish, cheerfully aware that she had beenoverheard, said, as she made room for Lillo--

　　"I wish you'd explain it."

　　Lillo smoothed his beard and waited for a cup of tea. Then, "Would therebe any failures," he said, "if one could explain them?"

　　"Ah, in some cases I can imagine it's impossible to seize the type--or tosay why one has missed it. Some people are like daguerreotypes; in certainlights one can't see them at all. But surely Vard was obvious enough. WhatI want to know is, what became of him? What did you do with him? How didyou manage to shuffle him out of sight?"

　　"It was much easier than you think. I simply missed an opportunity--"

　　"That a sign-painter would have seen!"

　　"Very likely. In fighting shy of the obvious one may miss thesignificant--"

　　"--And when I got back from Paris," the pretty woman was heard to wail, "Ifound all the women here were wearing the very models I'd brought homewith me!"

　　Mrs. Mellish, as became a vigilant hostess, got up and shuffled herguests; and the question of Yard's portrait was dropped.

　　I left the house with Lillo; and on the way down Fifth Avenue, after oneof his long silences, he suddenly asked:

　　"Is that what is generally said of my picture of Vard? I don't mean in thenewspapers, but by the fellows who know?"

　　I said it was.

　　He drew a deep breath. "Well," he said, "it's good to know that when onetries to fail one can make such a complete success of it."

　　"Tries to fail?"

　　"Well, no; that's not quite it, either; I didn't want to make a failure ofVard's picture, but I did so deliberately, with my eyes open, all thesame. It was what one might call a lucid failure."

　　"But why--?"

　　"The why of it is rather complicated. I'll tell you some time--" Hehesitated. "Come and dine with me at the club by and by, and I'll tell youafterwards. It's a nice morsel for a psychologist."

　　At dinner he said little; but I didn't mind that. I had known him foryears, and had always found something soothing and companionable in hislong abstentions from speech. His silence was never unsocial; it was blandas a natural hush; one felt one's self included in it, not left out. Hestroked his beard and gazed absently at me; and when we had finished ourcoffee and liqueurs we strolled down to his studio.

　　At the studio--which was less draped, less posed, less consciously"artistic" than those of the smaller men--he handed me a cigar, and fellto smoking before the fire. When he began to talk it was of indifferentmatters, and I had dismissed the hope of hearing more of Vard's portrait,when my eye lit on a photograph of the picture. I walked across the roomto look at it, and Lillo presently followed with a light.

　　"It certainly is a complete disguise," he muttered over my shoulder; thenhe turned away and stooped to a big portfolio propped against the wall.

　　"Did you ever know Miss Vard?" he asked, with his head in the portfolio;and without waiting for my answer he handed me a crayon sketch of a girl'sprofile.

　　I had never seen a crayon of Lillo's, and I lost sight of the sitter'spersonality in the interest aroused by this new aspect of the master'scomplex genius. The few lines--faint, yet how decisive!--flowered out ofthe rough paper with the lightness of opening petals. It was a mere hintof a picture, but vivid as some word that wakens long reverberations inthe memory.

　　I felt Lillo at my shoulder again.

　　"You knew her, I suppose?"

　　I had to stop and think. Why, of course I'd known her: a silent handsomegirl, showy yet ineffective, whom I had seen without seeing the winterthat society had capitulated to Vard. Still looking at the crayon, I triedto trace some connection between the Miss Vard I recalled and the graveyoung seraph of Lillo's sketch. Had the Vards bewitched him? By whatmasterstroke of suggestion had he been beguiled into drawing the terriblefather as a barber's block, the commonplace daughter as this memorablecreature?

　　"You don't remember much about her? No, I suppose not. She was a quietgirl and nobody noticed her much, even when--" he paused with a smile--"you were all asking Vard to dine."

　　I winced. Yes, it was true--we had all asked Vard to dine. It was somecomfort to think that fate had made him expiate our weakness.

　　Lillo put the sketch on the mantel-shelf and drew his arm-chair to thefire.

　　"It's cold to-night. Take another cigar, old man; and some whiskey? Thereought to be a bottle and some glasses in that cupboard behind you... helpyourself..."

　　II

　　About Vard's portrait? (he began.) Well, I'll tell you. It's a queerstory, and most people wouldn't see anything in it. My enemies might sayit was a roundabout way of explaining a failure; but you know better thanthat. Mrs. Mellish was right. Between me and Vard there could be noquestion of failure. The man was made for me--I felt that the first time Iclapped eyes on him. I could hardly keep from asking him to sit to me onthe spot; but somehow one couldn't ask favors of the fellow. I sat stilland prayed he'd come to me, though; for I was looking for something bigfor the next Salon. It was twelve years ago--the last time I was outere--and I was ravenous for an opportunity. I had the feeling--do youwriter-fellows have it too?--that there was something tremendous in me ifit could only be got out; and I felt Vard was the Moses to strike therock. There were vulgar reasons, too, that made me hunger for a victim.I'd been grinding on obscurely for a good many years, without gold orglory, and the first thing of mine that had made a noise was my picture ofPepita, exhibited the year before. There'd been a lot of talk about that,orders were beginning to come in, and I wanted to follow it up with arousing big thing at the next Salon. Then the critics had been insinuatingthat I could do only Spanish things--I suppose I had overdone thecastanet business; it's a nursery-disease we all go through--and I wantedto show that I had plenty more shot in my locker. Don't you get up everymorning meaning to prove you're equal to Balzac or Thackeray? That's theway I felt then; only give me a chance, I wanted to shout out to them;and I saw at once that Vard was my chance.

　　I had come over from Paris in the autumn to paint Mrs. Clingsborough, andI met Vard and his daughter at one of the first dinners I went to. Afterthat I could think of nothing but that man's head. What a type! I raked upall the details of his scandalous history; and there were enough to fillan encyclopaedia. The papers were full of him just then; he was mud fromhead to foot; it was about the time of the big viaduct steal, andirreproachable citizens were forming ineffectual leagues to put him down.And all the time one kept meeting him at dinners--that was the beauty ofit! Once I remember seeing him next to the Bishop's wife; I've got alittle sketch of that duet somewhere... Well, he was simply magnificent, aborn ruler; what a splendid condottiere he would have made, in gold armor,with a griffin grinning on his casque! You remember those drawings ofLeonardo's, where the knight's face and the outline of his helmet combinein one monstrous saurian profile? He always reminded me of that...

　　But how was I to get at him?--One day it occurred to me to try talking toMiss Vard. She was a monosyllabic person, who didn't seem to see an inchbeyond the last remark one had made; but suddenly I found myself blurtingout, "I wonder if you know how extraordinarily paintable your father is?"and you should have seen the change that came over her. Her eyes lit upand she looked--well, as I've tried to make her look there. (He glanced upat the sketch.) Yes, she said, wasn't her father splendid, and didn't Ithink him one of the handsomest men I'd ever seen?

　　That rather staggered me, I confess; I couldn't think her capable ofjoking on such a subject, yet it seemed impossible that she should bespeaking seriously. But she was. I knew it by the way she looked at Vard,who was sitting opposite, his wolfish profile thrown back, the shaggylocks tossed off his narrow high white forehead. The girl worshipped him.

　　She went on to say how glad she was that I saw him as she did. So manyartists admired only regular beauty, the stupid Greek type that was madeto be done in marble; but she'd always fancied from what she'd seen of mywork--she knew everything I'd done, it appeared--that I looked deeper,cared more for the way in which faces are modelled by temperament andcircumstance; "and of course in that sense," she concluded, "my father'sface is beautiful."

　　This was even more staggering; but one couldn't question her divinesincerity. I'm afraid my one thought was to take advantage of it; and Ilet her go on, perceiving that if I wanted to paint Vard all I had to dowas to listen.

　　She poured out her heart. It was a glorious thing for a girl, she said,wasn't it, to be associated with such a life as that? She felt it sostrongly, sometimes, that it oppressed her, made her shy and stupid. Shewas so afraid people would expect her to live up to him. But that wasabsurd, of course; brilliant men so seldom had clever children. Still--didI know?--she would have been happier, much happier, if he hadn't been inpublic life; if he and she could have hidden themselves away somewhere,with their books and music, and she could have had it all to herself: hiscleverness, his learning, his immense unbounded goodness. For no one knewhow good he was; no one but herself. Everybody recognized his cleverness,his brilliant abilities; even his enemies had to admit his extraordinaryintellectual gifts, and hated him the worse, of course, for the admission;but no one, no one could guess what he was at home. She had heard of greatmen who were always giving gala performances in public, but whose wivesand daughters saw only the empty theatre, with the footlights out and thescenery stacked in the wings; but with him it was just the other way:wonderful as he was in public, in society, she sometimes felt he wasn'tdoing himself justice--he was so much more wonderful at home. It was likecarrying a guilty secret about with her: his friends, his admirers, wouldnever forgive her if they found out that he kept all his best things forher!

　　I don't quite know what I felt in listening to her. I was chiefly taken upwith leading her on to the point I had in view; but even through mypersonal preoccupation I remember being struck by the fact that, thoughshe talked foolishly, she didn't talk like a fool. She was not stupid; shewas not obtuse; one felt that her impassive surface was alive withdelicate points of perception; and this fact, coupled with her crystallinefrankness, flung me back on a startled revision of my impressions of herfather. He came out of the test more monstrous than ever, as an ugly imagereflected in clear water is made uglier by the purity of the medium. Eventhen I felt a pang at the use to which fate had put the mountain-pool ofMiss Vard's spirit, and an uneasy sense that my own reflection there wasnot one to linger over. It was odd that I should have scrupled to deceive,on one small point, a girl already so hugely cheated; perhaps it was thecompleteness of her delusion that gave it the sanctity of a religiousbelief. At any rate, a distinct sense of discomfort tempered thesatisfaction with which, a day or two later, I heard from her that herfather had consented to give me a few sittings.

　　I'm afraid my scruples vanished when I got him before my easel. He wasimmense, and he was unexplored. From my point of view he'd never been donebefore--I was his Cortez. As he talked the wonder grew. His daughter camewith him, and I began to think she was right in saying that he kept hisbest for her. It wasn't that she drew him out, or guided the conversation;but one had a sense of delicate vigilance, hardly more perceptible thanone of those atmospheric influences that give the pulses a happier turn.She was a vivifying climate. I had meant to turn the talk to publicaffairs, but it slipped toward books and art, and I was faintly aware ofits being kept there without undue pressure. Before long I saw the valueof the diversion. It was easy enough to get at the political Vard: theother aspect was rarer and more instructive. His daughter had describedhim as a scholar. He wasn't that, of course, in any intrinsic sense: likemost men of his type he had gulped his knowledge standing, as he hadsnatched his food from lunch-counters; the wonder of it lay in hisextraordinary power of assimilation. It was the strangest instance of amind to which erudition had given force and fluency without culture; hislearning had not educated his perceptions: it was an implement serving toslash others rather than to polish himself. I have said that at firstsight he was immense; but as I studied him he began to lessen under myscrutiny. His depth was a false perspective painted on a wall.

　　It was there that my difficulty lay: I had prepared too big a canvas forhim. Intellectually his scope was considerable, but it was like thedigital reach of a mediocre pianist--it didn't make him a great musician.And morally he wasn't bad enough; his corruption wasn't sufficientlyimaginative to be interesting. It was not so much a means to an end as akind of virtuosity practised for its own sake, like a highly-developedskill in cannoning billiard balls. After all, the point of view is whatgives distinction to either vice or virtue: a morality with ground-glasswindows is no duller than a narrow cynicism.

　　His daughter's presence--she always came with him--gave unintentionalemphasis to these conclusions; for where she was richest he was naked. Shehad a deep-rooted delicacy that drew color and perfume from the verycentre of her being: his sentiments, good or bad, were as detachable ashis cuffs. Thus her nearness, planned, as I guessed, with the tenderintention of displaying, elucidating him, of making him accessible indetail to my dazzled perceptions--this pious design in fact defeateditself. She made him appear at his best, but she cheapened that best byher proximity. For the man was vulgar to the core; vulgar in spite of hisforce and magnitude; thin, hollow, spectacular; a lath-and-plaster bogey--

　　Did she suspect it? I think not--then. He was wrapped in her imperviousfaith... The papers? Oh, their charges were set down to political rivalry;and the only people she saw were his hangers-on, or the fashionable setwho had taken him up for their amusement. Besides, she would never havefound out in that way: at a direct accusation her resentment would haveflamed up and smothered her judgment. If the truth came to her, it wouldcome through knowing intimately some one--different; through--how shall Iput it?--an imperceptible shifting of her centre of gravity. My besettingfear was that I couldn't count on her obtuseness. She wasn't what iscalled clever; she left that to him; but she was exquisitely good; and nowand then she had intuitive felicities that frightened me. Do I make yousee her? We fellows can explain better with the brush; I don't know how tomix my words or lay them on. She wasn't clever; but her heart thought--that's all I can say...

　　If she'd been stupid it would have been easy enough: I could have paintedhim as he was. Could have? I did--brushed the face in one day from memory;it was the very man! I painted it out before she came: I couldn't bear tohave her see it. I had the feeling that I held her faith in him in myhands, carrying it like a brittle object through a jostling mob; a hair's-breadth swerve and it was in splinters.

　　When she wasn't there I tried to reason myself out of these subtleties. Mybusiness was to paint Vard as he was--if his daughter didn't mind hislooks, why should I? The opportunity was magnificent--I knew that by theway his face had leapt out of the canvas at my first touch. It would havebeen a big thing. Before every sitting I swore to myself I'd do it; thenshe came, and sat near him, and I--didn't.

　　I knew that before long she'd notice I was shirking the face. Vard himselftook little interest in the portrait, but she watched me closely, and oneday when the sitting was over she stayed behind and asked me when I meantto begin what she called "the likeness." I guessed from her tone that theembarrassment was all on my side, or that if she felt any it was at havingto touch a vulnerable point in my pride. Thus far the only doubt thattroubled her was a distrust of my ability. Well, I put her off with anyrot you please: told her she must trust me, must let me wait for theinspiration; that some day the face would come; I should see it suddenly--feel it under my brush... The poor child believed me: you can make a womanbelieve almost anything she doesn't quite understand. She was abashed ather philistinism, and begged me not to tell her father--he would make suchfun of her!

　　After that--well, the sittings went on. Not many, of course; Vard was toobusy to give me much time. Still, I could have done him ten times over.Never had I found my formula with such ease, such assurance; there were nohesitations, no obstructions--the face was there, waiting for me; attimes it almost shaped itself on the canvas. Unfortunately Miss Vard wasthere too ...

　　All this time the papers were busy with the viaduct scandal. The outcrywas getting louder. You remember the circumstances? One of Vard'sassociates--Bardwell, wasn't it?--threatened disclosures. The rivalmachine got hold of him, the Independents took him to their bosom, and thepress shrieked for an investigation. It was not the first storm Vard hadweathered, and his face wore just the right shade of cool vigilance; hewasn't the man to fall into the mistake of appearing too easy. Hisdemeanor would have been superb if it had been inspired by a sense of hisown strength; but it struck me rather as based on contempt for hisantagonists. Success is an inverted telescope through which one's enemiesare apt to look too small and too remote. As for Miss Vard, her serenitywas undiminished; but I half-detected a defiance in her unruffledsweetness, and during the last sittings I had the factitious vivacity of ahostess who hears her best china crashing.

　　One day it did crash: the head-lines of the morning papers shouted thecatastrophe at me:--"The Monster forced to disgorge--Warrant out againstVard--Bardwell the Boss's Boomerang"--you know the kind of thing.

　　When I had read the papers I threw them down and went out. As it happened,Vard was to have given me a sitting that morning; but there would havebeen a certain irony in waiting for him. I wished I had finished thepicture--I wished I'd never thought of painting it. I wanted to shake offthe whole business, to put it out of my mind, if I could: I had thefeeling--I don't know if I can describe it--that there was a kind ofdisloyalty to the poor girl in my even acknowledging to myself that I knewwhat all the papers were howling from the housetops....

　　I had walked for an hour when it suddenly occurred to me that Miss Vardmight, after all, come to the studio at the appointed hour. Why shouldshe? I could conceive of no reason; but the mere thought of what, if shedid come, my absence would imply to her, sent me bolting back to TwelfthStreet. It was a presentiment, if you like, for she was there.

　　As she rose to meet me a newspaper slipped from her hand: I'd been foolenough, when I went out, to leave the damned things lying all over theplace.

　　I muttered some apology for being late, and she said reassuringly:

　　"But my father's not here yet."

　　"Your father--?" I could have kicked myself for the way I bungled it!

　　"He went out very early this morning, and left word that he would meet mehere at the usual hour."

　　She faced me, with an eye full of bright courage, across the newspaperlying between us.

　　"He ought to be here in a moment now--he's always so punctual. But mywatch is a little fast, I think."

　　She held it out to me almost gaily, and I was just pretending to compareit with mine, when there was a smart rap on the door and Vard stalked in.There was always a civic majesty in his gait, an air of having juststepped off his pedestal and of dissembling an oration in his umbrella;and that day he surpassed himself. Miss Vard had turned pale at the knock;but the mere sight of him replenished her veins, and if she now avoided myeye, it was in mere pity for my discomfiture.

　　I was in fact the only one of the three who didn't instantly "play up";but such virtuosity was inspiring, and by the time Vard had thrown off hiscoat and dropped into a senatorial pose, I was ready to pitch into mywork. I swore I'd do his face then and there; do it as she saw it; she satclose to him, and I had only to glance at her while I painted--

　　Vard himself was masterly: his talk rattled through my hesitations andembarrassments like a brisk northwester sweeping the dry leaves from itspath. Even his daughter showed the sudden brilliance of a lamp from whichthe shade has been removed. We were all surprisingly vivid--it felt,somehow, as though we were being photographed by flash-light...

　　It was the best sitting we'd ever had--but unfortunately it didn't lastmore than ten minutes.

　　It was Vard's secretary who interrupted us--a slinking chap calledCornley, who burst in, as white as sweetbread, with the face of adepositor who hears his bank has stopped payment. Miss Vard started up ashe entered, but caught herself together and dropped back into her chair.Vard, who had taken out a cigarette, held the tip tranquilly to his fusee.

　　"You're here, thank God!" Cornley cried. "There's no time to be lost, Mr.Vard. I've got a carriage waiting round the corner in Thirteenth Street--"

　　Vard looked at the tip of his cigarette.

　　"A carriage in Thirteenth Street? My good fellow, my own brougham is atthe door."

　　"I know, I know--but they're there too, sir; or they will be, inside ofa minute. For God's sake, Mr. Vard, don't trifle!--There's a way out byThirteenth Street, I tell you"--

　　"Bardwell's myrmidons, eh?" said Vard. "Help me on with my overcoat,Cornley, will you?"

　　Cornley's teeth chattered.

　　"Mr. Vard, your best friends ... Miss Vard, won't you speak to yourfather?" He turned to me haggardly;--"We can get out by the back way?"

　　I nodded.

　　Vard stood towering--in some infernal way he seemed literally to rise tothe situation--one hand in the bosom of his coat, in the attitude ofpatriotism in bronze. I glanced at his daughter: she hung on him with adrowning look. Suddenly she straightened herself; there was something ofVard in the way she faced her fears--a kind of primitive calm we drawing-room folk don't have. She stepped to him and laid her hand on his arm. Thepause hadn't lasted ten seconds.

　　"Father--" she said.

　　Vard threw back his head and swept the studio with a sovereign eye.

　　"The back way, Mr. Vard, the back way," Cornley whimpered. "For God'ssake, sir, don't lose a minute."

　　Vard transfixed his abject henchman.

　　"I have never yet taken the back way," he enunciated; and, with a gesturematching the words, he turned to me and bowed.

　　"I regret the disturbance"--and he walked to the door. His daughter was athis side, alert, transfigured.

　　"Stay here, my dear."

　　"Never!"

　　They measured each other an instant; then he drew her arm in his. Sheflung back one look at me--a paean of victory--and they passed out withCornley at their heels.

　　I wish I'd finished the face then; I believe I could have caught somethingof the look she had tried to make me see in him. Unluckily I was tooexcited to work that day or the next, and within the week the wholebusiness came out. If the indictment wasn't a put-up job--and on that Ibelieve there were two opinions--all that followed was. You remember thefarcical trial, the packed jury, the compliant judge, the triumphantacquittal?... It's a spectacle that always carries conviction to thevoter: Vard was never more popular than after his "exoneration"...

　　I didn't see Miss Vard for weeks. It was she who came to me at length;came to the studio alone, one afternoon at dusk. She had--what shall Isay?--a veiled manner; as though she had dropped a fine gauze between us.I waited for her to speak.

　　She glanced about the room, admiring a hawthorn vase I had picked up atauction. Then, after a pause, she said:

　　"You haven't finished the picture?"

　　"Not quite," I said.

　　She asked to see it, and I wheeled out the easel and threw the draperyback.

　　"Oh," she murmured, "you haven't gone on with the face?"

　　I shook my head.

　　She looked down on her clasped hands and up at the picture; not once atme.

　　"You--you're going to finish it?"

　　"Of course," I cried, throwing the revived purpose into my voice. By God,I would finish it!

　　The merest tinge of relief stole over her face, faint as the first thinchirp before daylight.

　　"Is it so very difficult?" she asked tentatively.

　　"Not insuperably, I hope."

　　She sat silent, her eyes on the picture. At length, with an effort, shebrought out: "Shall you want more sittings?"

　　For a second I blundered between two conflicting conjectures; then thetruth came to me with a leap, and I cried out, "No, no more sittings!"

　　She looked up at me then for the first time; looked too soon, poor child;for in the spreading light of reassurance that made her eyes like a rainydawn, I saw, with terrible distinctness, the rout of her disbanded hopes.I knew that she knew ...

　　I finished the picture and sent it home within a week. I tried to make it--what you see.--Too late, you say? Yes--for her; but not for me or forthe public. If she could be made to feel, for a day longer, for an houreven, that her miserable secret was a secret--why, she'd made it seemworth while to me to chuck my own ambitions for that ...

　　* * * * *

　　Lillo rose, and taking down the sketch stood looking at it in silence.

　　After a while I ventured, "And Miss Vard--?"

　　He opened the portfolio and put the sketch back, tying the strings withdeliberation. Then, turning to relight his cigar at the lamp, he said:"She died last year, thank God."