“You will never be a minor artist, Mr. Kendal,” ventured Miss Halifax.

“Certainly not.  You will rise to greatness at a bound,” said Lady Halifax, with substantial conviction and an illustrative wave of a fat well-gloved hand with a doubled-up fragment of bread and butter between the thumb and forefinger, “or we shall be much disappointed in you.”

“It’s rapidly becoming a delicate compliment to have been left out,” Mr. Cardiff remarked, with melancholy.

“Some of those you’ve honored with your recognition are the maddest of all, aren’t they, daddy, as we say in America!  Dear old thing, you are in a perilous case, and who is to take you round at the Private Views this year—­that’s the question of the hour!  You needn’t depend upon me.  There won’t be a soul on the line that you haven’t either put in or left out!”

“It was a fearful thing to write about,” Kendal responded comfortably.  “He deserves all the consequences.  Let him go round alone.”  Under the surface of his thoughts was a pleased recognition of how little a fresh-colored English girl changes in three years.  Looking at Miss Halifax’s hat, it occurred to him that it was an agreeable thing not to be eternally “struck” by the apparel of women—­so forcibly that he almost said it.  “What have you been doing?” he asked Janet.

“Wonders,” Lady Halifax responded for her.  “I can’t think where she gets the energy or the brains—­”

“Can’t you?” her father interrupted.  “Upon my word!” Mr. Cardiff had the serious facial muscles of a comedian, and the rigid discipline he was compelled to give them as a professor of Oriental tongues of London University intensified their effect when it was absurd.  The rest laughed, and his cousin went on to say that she wished she had the gift.  Her daughter echoed her, looking at Janet in a way that meant she would say it, whatever the consequences might be.

“I must see something,” said Kendal, “immediately.”

“See something!” exclaimed Lady Halifax.  “Well, look in the last number of the London Magazine.  But you’ll please show something first.”

“Yes, indeed!” Miss Halifax echoed.

“When will you be ready for inspection?” Mr. Cardiff asked.

“Come on Thursday, all of you.  I’ll show you what there is.”

“Will you give us our tea?” Miss Halifax inquired, with a nervous smile.

“Of course.  And there will be buns.  You will do me the invaluable service of representing the opinion of the British public in advance.  Will Thursday suit?”

“Perfectly,” Lady Halifax replied.  “The old rooms in Bryanston Street, I suppose?”

“Thursday won’t suit us,” Janet put in decisively.  “No, papa; I’ve got people coming here to tea.  Besides, Lady Halifax is quite equal to representing the whole British public by herself, aren’t you, dear?” That excellent woman nodded with a pretence of loftily consenting, and her daughter gave Janet rather a suspicious glance.  “Daddy and I will come another day,” Janet went on in reassuring tones; “but we shall expect buns too, remember.”