“Ah,” said Mrs. Dollond mischievously, “and that accounts for the pastille.  You never made such preparations when I sat to you.  I suppose you thought that a painter’s wife could not possibly object to tobacco.”

“And she certainly doesn’t, judging by her consumption of cigarettes!” interposed her husband.

“Hugh, I’m ashamed of you.  You know I’m a martyr to asthma—­and cigarettes aren’t tobacco.  But how old is Miss Sylvester?  Is she pretty?”

“Don’t ask me to describe her, Mrs. Dollond.  Wait till you see her—­she’s coming, you know.  What do you think of that river-scape, most reverend signor?  It’s one of the little things I’ve been doing down at Rainham’s Dock—­down at Blackpool.”

The Academician tried to appear interested as he assumed the conventional bird-like pose of the picture-gazer, and surveyed the sketch.

“Very pretty—­very pretty!  I should hardly have thought it was the Thames, though.  It isn’t muddy enough.  In fact, the whole scheme of colour is much too clean for London.  Quite absurd!  Not a bit like it!  Eh, my dear, what was I saying?  Oh yes, I like the effect of the sunlight on that brown sail immensely.  It’s really very clever, very clever.”

Mrs. Dollond, who never knew what her husband would say next, welcomed the influx of a small throng of visitors with a sigh of relief.

The Sylvesters and Philip Rainham, arriving at the same time, found the little studio almost crowded.  Besides the Dollonds there were two or three of the Turk Street fraternity; a young sculptor, newly arrived from Rome, with his wife; Dionysus F. Quain, an American interested in petroleum, who had patronized Lightmark also at Rome; and Copal, whose studio was in the same building, and who was manifestly anxious about his Chelsea teacups.

Mrs. Sylvester greeted her protege with a flattering degree of warmth which was entirely absent from the stare and conventional smile with which she honoured Mrs. Dollond, and the somewhat impertinent air of patronage which she wore when one or two of the young artists were introduced to her.  If they did not mind, Mrs. Dollond was inclined to be resentful, for the moment, at least; and, as a preliminary attack, she maliciously encouraged Eve, who, ensconced in a corner, blissfully unconscious of the maternal anxiety which the other matron had detected, was eagerly turning over the contents of a portfolio which she had unearthed from its lurking-place behind her chair.

Rainham was looking over her shoulder, admiring the charming poise of the girl’s head, and the contours of her wrists and hands, as she submitted the drawings to his inspection.  Charles Sylvester stationed himself close by, and devoted himself to buttonholing the American senator, to the obvious discomfort of his victim, whose knowledge of Pennsylvanian oil-wells was infinitely greater than his acquaintance with the rudiments of summary jurisdiction, as practised in his native State, and who, after hazarding a remark to the effect that Judge Lynch had long since retired from the Bench, had, as he would have put it, “pretty considerably petered out.”