“Oh dear, oh dear,” she laughed, “and these are words of one syllable!  You talk as though I were a dreadful dragon seeking a genius to devour!”

“You are,” said the novelist, gruffly.

“How nice.  I’m all shivery with delight, already.  You really must bring him now, you see.  You might as well, for, if you don’t, I’ll manage some other way when you are not around to protect him.  You don’t want to trust him to me unprotected, do you?”

“No, and I won’t,” retorted Conrad Lagrange—­which, though Mrs. Taine did not remark it, was also a twister.

“But after all, perhaps he won’t come,” she said with mock anxiety.

“Don’t worry madam—­he’s just as much a fool as the rest of us.”

As the novelist spoke, they heard the voices of Miss Taine and her escort, James Rutlidge.  Mrs. Taine had only time to shake a finger in playful warning at her companion, and to whisper, “Mind you bring your artist to me, or I’ll get him when you’re not looking; and listen, don’t tell Jim about him; I must see what he is like, first.”

At lunch, the next day, Conrad Lagrange greeted the artist in his bitterest humor.  “And how is the famous Aaron King, to-day?  I trust that the greatest portrait painter of the age is well; that the hotel people have been properly attentive to the comfort of their illustrious guest?  The world of art can ill afford to have its rarest genius suffer from any lack of the service that is due his greatness.”

The young man’s face flushed at his companion’s mocking tone; but he laughed.  “I missed you at breakfast.”

“I was sleeping off the effect of my intellectual debauch—­it takes time to recover from a dinner with ‘Materialism,’ ‘Sensual,’ ‘Ragtime’ and ’The Age’,” the other returned, the menu in his hand.  “What slop are they offering to put in our troughs for this noon’s feed?”

Again, Aaron King laughed.  But as the novelist, with characteristic comments and instructions to the waitress, ordered his lunch, the artist watched him as though waiting with interest his further remarks on the subject of his evening with the Taines.

When the girl was gone, Conrad Lagrange turned again to his companion, and from under his scowling brows regarded him much as a withered scientist might regard an interesting insect under his glass.  “Permit me to congratulate you,” he said suggestively—­as though the bug had succeeded in acting in some manner fully expected by the scientist but wholly disgusting to him.

The artist colored again as he returned curiously, “Upon what?”

“Upon the start you have made toward the goal you hope to reach.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mrs. Taine wants you.”

“You are pleased to be facetious.”  Under the eyes of his companion, Aaron King felt that his reply did not at all conceal his satisfaction.

“I am pleased to be exact.  I repeat—­Mrs. Taine wants you.  I am ordered by the reigning ‘Goddess’ of ’Modern Art’—­’The Age’—­to bring you into her ‘Court.’  You have won favor in her sight.  She finds you good to look at.  She hopes to find you—­as good as you look.  If you do not disappoint her, your fame is assured.”