Scoutbush takes for a Frenchman, till he hears him called Stangrave.  The intruder is introduced to Lord Scoutbush, which ceremony is consummated by a microscopic nod on either side; he then walks straight up to La Cordifiamma; and Scoutbush sees her cheeks flush as he does so.  He takes her hand, speaks to her in a low voice, and sits down by her, Claude making room for him; and the two engage earnestly in conversation.

Scoutbush is much inclined to walk out of the room;—­was he brought there to see that?  Of course, however, he sits still, keeps his own counsel, and makes himself agreeable enough all the evening, like a good-natured kind-hearted little man, as he is.  Whereby he is repaid; for the conversation soon becomes deep, and even too deep for him; and he is fain to drop out of the race, and leave it to his idol and to the new-comer, who seems to have seen, and done, and read everything in heaven and earth, and probably bought everything also; not to mention that he would be happy to sell the said universe again, at a very cheap price, if any one would kindly take it off his hands.  Not that he boasts, or takes any undue share of the conversation; he is evidently too well bred for that; but every sentence shows an acquaintance with facts of which Eton has told Scoutbush nothing, the barrack-room less, and after which he still craves, the good little fellow, in a very honest way, and would soon have learnt, had he had a chance; for of native Irish smartness he had no lack.

“Poor Flake was half mad about you, Signora, in the stage-box to-night,” said Sabina.  “He says that he shall not sleep till he has painted you.”

“Do let him!” cried Scoutbush:  “what a picture he will make!”

“He may paint a picture, but not me; it is quite enough, Lord Scoutbush, to be some one else for two hours every night, without going down to posterity, as some one else for ever.  If I am painted, I will be painted by no one who cannot represent my very self.”

“You are right!” said Stangrave:  “and you will do the man himself good by refusing; he has some notion still of what a portrait ought to be.  If he once begins by attempting passing expressions of passion, which is all stage portraits can give, he will find them so much easier than honest representations of character, that he will end, where all our moderns seem to do, in merest melodrama.”

“Explain!” said she.

“Portrait painters now depend for their effect on the mere accidents of the entourage; on dress, on landscape, even on broad hints of a man’s occupation, putting a plan on the engineer’s table, and a roll in the statesman’s hands, like the old Greek who wrote ‘this is an ox’ under his picture.  If they wish to give the face expression, though they seldom aim so high, all they can compass is a passing emotion; and one sitter goes down to posterity with an eternal frown, another with an eternal smile.”

“Or, if he be a poet,” said Sabina, “rolls his eye for ever in a fine frenzy.”