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“Oh, hang the group–let him chuck the order!” cried Stanwell.

She looked at him tragically. “The money is spent,” she said.

He coloured to the roots of his hair. “But ill-health–ill-health excuses everything. If he goes away now he will come back good for twice the amount of work in the spring. A sculptor is not expected to deliver a statue on a given day, like a package of groceries! You must do as the doctor says–you must make him chuck everything and go.”

They had reached a windless nook above the lake, and, pausing in the stress of their talk, she let herself sink on a bench beside the path. The movement encouraged him, and he seated himself at her side.

“You must take him away at once,” he repeated urgently. “He must be made comfortable–you must both be free from worry. And I want you to let me manage it for you–“

He broke off, silenced by her rising blush, her protesting murmur.

“Oh, stop, please; let me explain. I’m not talking of lending you money; I’m talking of giving you–myself. The offer may be just as unacceptable, but it’s of a kind to which it’s customary to accord it a hearing. I should have made it a year ago–the first day I saw you, I believe!–but that, then, it wasn’t in my power to make things easier for you. But now, you know, I’ve had a little luck. Since I painted Mrs. Millington things have changed. I believe I can get as many orders as I choose–there are two or three people waiting now. What’s the use of it all, if it doesn’t bring me a little happiness? And the only happiness I know is the kind that you can give me.”

He paused, suddenly losing the courage to look at her, so that her pained murmur was framed for him in a glittering vision of the frozen lake. He turned with a start and met the refusal in her eyes.

“No–really no?” he repeated.

She shook her head silently.

“I could have helped you–I could have helped you!” he sighed.

She flushed distressfully, but kept her eyes on his.

“It’s just that–don’t you see?” she reproached him.

“Just that–the fact that I could be of use to you?”

“The fact that, as you say, things have changed since you painted Mrs. Millington. I haven’t seen the later portraits, but they tell me–“

“Oh, they’re just as bad!” Stanwell jeered.

“You’ve sold your talent, and you know it: that’s the dreadful part. You did it deliberately,” she cried with passion.

“Oh, deliberately,” he interjected.

“And you’re not ashamed–you talk of going on.”

“I’m not ashamed; I talk of going on.”

She received this with a long shuddering sigh, and turned her eyes away from him.

“Oh, why–why–why?” she lamented.

It was on the tip of Stanwell’s tongue to answer, “That I might say to you what I am just saying now–” but he replied instead: “A man may paint bad pictures and be a decent fellow. Look at Mungold, after all!”

The adjuration had an unexpected effect. Kate’s colour faded suddenly, and she sat motionless, with a stricken face.

“There’s a difference–” she began at length abruptly; “the difference you’ve always insisted on. Mr. Mungold paints as well as he can. He has no idea that his pictures are–less good than they might be.”

“Well–?”

“So he can’t be accused of doing what he does for money–of sacrificing anything better.” She turned on him with troubled eyes. “It was you who made me understand that, when Caspar used to make fun of him.”

Stanwell smiled. “I’m glad you still think me a better painter than Mungold. But isn’t it hard that for that very reason I should starve in a hole? If I painted badly enough you’d see no objection to my living at the Waldorf!”

“Ah, don’t joke about it,” she murmured. “Don’t triumph in it.”

“I see no reason to at present,” said Stanwell drily. “But I won’t pretend to be ashamed when I’m not. I think there are occasions when a man is justified in doing what I’ve done.”