That evening Neville said to his sister:  “There’s a train at midnight; I don’t think I’ll stay over—­”

“Why?”

“I want to be in town early.”

“Why?”

“The early light is the best.”

“I thought you’d stopped painting for a while.”

“I have, practically.  There’s one thing I keep on with, in a desultory sort of way—­”

“What is it?”

“Oh, nothing of importance—­” he hesitated—­“that Is, it may be important.  I can’t be sure, yet.”

“Will you tell me what it is?”

“Why, yes.  It’s a portrait—­a study—­”

“Of whom, dear?”

“Oh, of nobody you know—­”

“Is it a portrait of Valerie West?”

“Yes,” he said, carelessly.

There was a silence; in the starlight his shadowy face was not clearly visible to his sister.

“Are you leaving just to continue that portrait?”

“Yes.  I’m interested in it.”

“Don’t go,” she said, in a low voice.

“Don’t be silly,” he returned shortly.

“Dear, I am not silly, but I suspect you are beginning to be.  And over a model!”

“Lily, you little idiot,” he laughed, exasperated; “what in the world is worrying you?”

“Your taking that girl to the St. Regis.  It isn’t like you.”

“Good Lord!  How many girls do you suppose I’ve taken to various places?”

“Not many,” she said, smiling at him.  “Your reputation for gallantries is not alarming.”

Ho reddened.  “You’re perfectly right.  That sort of thing never appealed to me.”

“Then why does it appeal to you now?”

“It doesn’t.  Can’t you understand that this girl is entirely different—­”

“Yes, I understand.  And that is what worries me.”

“It needn’t.  It’s precisely like taking any girl you know and like—­”

“Then let me know her—­if you mean to decorate-public places with her.”

They looked at one another steadily.

“Louis,” she said, “this pretty Valerie is not your sister’s sort, or you wouldn’t hesitate.”

“I—­hesitate—­yes, certainly I do.  It’s absurd on the face of it.  She’s too fine a nature to be patronised—­too inexperienced in the things of your world—­too ignorant of petty conventions and formalities—­too free and fearless and confident and independent to appeal to the world you live in.”

“Isn’t that a rather scornful indictment against my world, dear?”

“No.  Your world is all right in its way.  You and I were brought up in it.  I got out of it.  There are other worlds.  The one I now inhabit is more interesting to me.  It’s purely a matter of personal taste, dear.  Valerie West inhabits a world that suits her.”

“Has she had any choice in the matter?”

“I—­yes.  She’s had the sense and the courage to keep out of the various unsafe planets where electric light furnishes the principal illumination.”