Then, as she looked a moment longer at the picture, she saw that the quality in Kemper which the painter had caught and arrested with an excellent technique upon the canvas, was the resemblance to Perry Bridewell which had offended her when she noticed it the other day.  It was there, evidently—­this foreign painter had seized upon it as the most subtle characteristic of Kemper’s face—­and in dwelling upon it in the portrait as he had done, she realised that he had attempted to produce, not so much the likeness of the man, as a startling, almost sinister study of a personality.  What he had shown her was the temperament, not the face of her lover—­not her lover, indeed, she told herself the next instant, but Madame Alta’s.

“I can’t get used to it—­I’ll never like it,” she repeated, and rising from her chair, as if the view of the portrait annoyed her, she went over to the centre table to glance idly over the current fiction with which Kemper occupied his leisure hours.  Her eyes were still wandering aimlessly over the titles of the books, when her attention was diverted by the sound of Wilkins’ voice, lowered discreetly to an apologetic whisper; and immediately afterward she heard the softened soprano of a woman, who insisted, apparently, upon leaving the elevator and crossing the hail outside.  The conversation with Wilkins had reached Gerty’s ears at the same instant, and she, too, sat now with her enquiring gaze bent on the door, which opened presently to admit the ample person of Madame Alta.  At sight of them she showed no tremor of surprise, but stood poised there, in an impressive stage entrance, upon the threshold, presiding, as it were, over the situation with all the brilliant publicity which her exquisite gift conferred.  Her art had not only placed her below the level of her sex’s morality, it had lifted her above any embarrassment of accident, and as she hesitated for a single smiling minute in the doorway, she appeared more at home in her surroundings than either of the two women who stood, in silence, awaiting her advance.  With her ermine, her ostrich feathers, her smile, and her scented powder, she impressed Laura less as extinguishing her by the splendour of a presence than as smothering her in the softness of an effect.  For it was at Laura that, after the first gently enquiring glance, she levelled her words as well as her caressing look.

“It was such a happy chance to meet you that I couldn’t let it slip,” she said, as she bore down upon her with a large, soft hand outstretched, “Mr. Kemper has been so good a friend to me that I am overjoyed to have the opportunity of telling you how much I think of him.  He has been really the greatest help about some speculations, too—­don’t you think he has quite a genius for that kind of thing?”