A slight laugh sounded from the raised dais behind the easel.

“Of course they’re not!  But it’s not his fault, poor man; he didn’t give them to me!” As she spoke Mrs. Ralph Marvell rose from a monumental gilt arm-chair of pseudo-Venetian design and swept her long draperies to Van Degen’s side.

“He might, then—­for the privilege of painting you!” the latter rejoined, transferring his bulging stare from the counterfeit to the original.  His eyes rested on Mrs. Marvell’s in what seemed a quick exchange of understanding; then they passed on to a critical inspection of her person.  She was dressed for the sitting in something faint and shining, above which the long curves of her neck looked dead white in the cold light of the studio; and her hair, all a shadowless rosy gold, was starred with a hard glitter of diamonds.

“The privilege of painting me?  Mercy, I have to pay for being painted!  He’ll tell you he’s giving me the picture—­but what do you suppose this cost?” She laid a finger-tip on her shimmering dress.

Van Degen’s eye rested on her with cold enjoyment.  “Does the price come higher than the dress?”

She ignored the allusion.  “Of course what they charge for is the cut—­”

“What they cut away?  That’s what they ought to charge for, ain’t it, Popp?”

Undine took this with cool disdain, but Mr. Popple’s sensibilities were offended.

“My dear Peter—­really—­the artist, you understand, sees all this as a pure question of colour, of pattern; and it’s a point of honour with the man to steel himself against the personal seduction.”

Mr. Van Degen received this protest with a sound of almost vulgar derision, but Undine thrilled agreeably under the glance which her portrayer cast on her.  She was flattered by Van Degen’s notice, and thought his impertinence witty; but she glowed inwardly at Mr. Popple’s eloquence.  After more than three years of social experience she still thought he “spoke beautifully,” like the hero of a novel, and she ascribed to jealousy the lack of seriousness with which her husband’s friends regarded him.  His conversation struck her as intellectual, and his eagerness to have her share his thoughts was in flattering contrast to Ralph’s growing tendency to keep his to himself.  Popple’s homage seemed the, subtlest proof of what Ralph could have made of her if he had “really understood” her.  It was but another step to ascribe all her past mistakes to the lack of such understanding; and the satisfaction derived from this thought had once impelled her to tell the artist that he alone knew how to rouse her ‘higher self.’  He had assured her that the memory of her words would thereafter hallow his life; and as he hinted that it had been stained by the darkest errors she was moved at the thought of the purifying influence she exerted.