Such a company was one to flatter the artist as much his sitter, so completely did it represent that unamity of opinion which constitutes social strength.  Not one the number was troubled by any personal theory of art:  all they asked of a portrait was that the costume should be sufficiently “life-like,” and the face not too much so; and a long experience in idealizing flesh and realizing dress-fabrics had enabled Mr. Popple to meet both demands.

“Hang it,” Peter Van Degen pronounced, standing before the easel in an attitude of inspired interpretation, “the great thing in a man’s portrait is to catch the likeness—­we all know that; but with a woman’s it’s different—­a woman’s picture has got to be pleasing.  Who wants it about if it isn’t?  Those big chaps who blow about what they call realism—­how do their portraits look in a drawing-room?  Do you suppose they ever ask themselves that?  They don’t care—­they’re not going to live with the things!  And what do they know of drawing-rooms, anyhow?  Lots of them haven’t even got a dress-suit.  There’s where old Popp has the pull over ’em—­he knows how we live and what we want.”

This was received by the artist with a deprecating murmur, and by his public with warm expressions of approval.

“Happily in this case,” Popple began ("as in that of so many of my sitters,” he hastily put in), “there has been no need to idealize-nature herself has outdone the artist’s dream.”

Undine, radiantly challenging comparison with her portrait, glanced up at it with a smile of conscious merit, which deepened as young Jim Driscoll declared: 

“By Jove, Mamie, you must be done exactly like that for the new music-room.”

His wife turned a cautious eye upon the picture.

“How big is it?  For our house it would have to be a good deal bigger,” she objected; and Popple, fired by the thought of such a dimensional opportunity, rejoined that it would be the chance of all others to. “work in” a marble portico and a court-train:  he had just done Mrs. Lycurgus Ambler in a court-train and feathers, and as that was for Buffalo of course the pictures needn’t clash.

“Well, it would have to be a good deal bigger than Mrs. Ambler’s,” Mrs. Driscoll insisted; and on Popple’s suggestion that in that case he might “work in” Driscoll, in court-dress also—­("You’ve been presented?  Well, you will be,—­you’ll have to, if I do the picture—­which will make a lovely memento")—­Van Degen turned aside to murmur to Undine:  “Pure bluff, you know—­Jim couldn’t pay for a photograph.  Old Driscoll’s high and dry since the Ararat investigation.”

She threw him a puzzled glance, having no time, in her crowded existence, to follow the perturbations of Wall Street save as they affected the hospitality of Fifth Avenue.

“You mean they’ve lost their money?  Won’t they give their fancy ball, then?”