“Sandy, you’re rather horrid,” said Miss Aulne, watching him sort out the jokers from the new packs and, with a skilful flip, send them scaling out, across the grass, for somebody to pick up.

Cameron said:  “How about this Trilby business, anyway, Miss Annan?  You have a brother in it.  Is the world of art full of pretty models clad in ballet skirts—­when they wear anything?  Is it all one mad, joyous melange of high-brow conversation discreetly peppered with low-brow revelry?  Yes?  No?  Inform an art lover, please—­as they say in the Times Saturday Review.”

“I don’t know,” said Miss Annan, laughing.  “Harry never has anybody interesting in the studio when he lets me take tea there.”

Rose Aulne said:  “I saw some photographs of a very beautiful girl in Sam Ogilvy’s studio—­a model.  What is her name, Alice?—­the one Sam and Harry are always raving over?”

“They call her Valerie, I believe.”

“Yes, that’s the one—­Valerie West, isn’t it? Is it, Louis?  You know her, of course.”

Neville nodded coolly.

“Introduce me,” murmured Cameron, spreading a pack for cutting.  “Perhaps she’d like to see the Stock Exchange when I’m at my best.”

“Is she such a beauty?  Do you know her, too, Mr. Querida?” asked Rose Aulne.

Querida laughed:  “I do.  Miss West is a most engaging, most amiable and cultivated girl, and truly very beautiful.”

“Oh!  They are sometimes educated?” asked Stephanie, surprised.

“Sometimes they are even equipped to enter almost any drawing-room in New York.  It doesn’t always require the very highest equipment to do that,” he added, laughing.

“That sounds like romantic fiction,” observed Alice Annan.  “You are a poet, Mr. Querida.”

“Oh, it’s not often a girl like Valerie West crosses our path.  I admit that.  Now and then such a comet passes across our sky—­or is reported.  I never before saw any except this one.”

“If she’s as much of a winner as all that,” began Cameron with decision, “I want to meet her immediately—­”

“Mere brokers are out of it,” said Alice....  “Cut, please.”

Rose Aulne said:  “If you painters only knew it, your stupid studio teas would be far more interesting if you’d have a girl like this Valerie West to pour for you ... and for us to see.”

“Yes,” added Alice; “but they’re a vain lot.  They think we are unsophisticated enough to want to go to their old studios and be perfectly satisfied to look at their precious pictures, and listen to their art patter.  I’ve told Harry that what we want is to see something of the real studio life; and he tries to convince me that it’s about as exciting as a lawyer’s life when he dictates to his stenographer.”

[Illustration:  “‘If she’s as much of a winner as all that,’ began Cameron with decision, ‘I want to meet her immediately—­’”]

“Is it?” asked Stephanie of Neville.